Lankans asked to push peace or lose foreign aid

Sri Lankan political wing leader of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), SP Thamilselvan (Above L) passes behind member of the delegation at the opening of the Sri Lanka peace talks yesterday in Geneva. Sri Lanka's warring parties shook hands as they resumed face-to-face negotiations in the presence of Norwegian peace brokers after eight months break and 3,000 deaths in fighting on the Indian Ocean island. PHOTO: AFP

Peace broker Norway said the international community had virtually placed the Sri Lankans on notice to show progress in efforts to resolve the long-running separatist conflict, which has claimed over 60,000 lives since 1972.

"We have shown a lot of patience and we are prepared to show more, but the people in Sri Lanka and the international community will be impatient," Norway's International Development Minister Erik Solheim said at the start of the talks.

He said the island risked losing huge foreign aid and goodwill unless the government and Tamil Tiger rebels worked towards a final political solution based on a federal formula agreed in December 2002.

Speaking on behalf of Sri Lanka's key international backers, including the US, European Union and Japan, Solheim said the number of people killed in Sri Lanka in the past eight months exceeded the toll in Lebanon.

Official figures show that about 3,000 people have been killed on the Indian Ocean island since the two parties had their last face-to-face meeting in Switzerland in February and agreed to scale down violence.

Solheim said both sides had failed to keep promises made then and the killings had escalated.

He blamed both the government and the Tigers for the bloodshed and said it was an "unwinnable war".

Diplomats expect the two-day meeting at Geneva's International Conference Centre will simply buy time for more talks in December and January.

However, Solheim said Saturday's gathering, arranged after intense international pressure on the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, was a "step in the right direction."

"These talks constitute a small ray of hope, at least a step in the right direction," he said.

The head of the Sri Lankan government delegation, Nimal Siripala de Silva, and the head of the political wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), SP Thamilselvan, shook hands at the invitation of Solheim, signalling the start of talks.

"There may not be a dramatic outcome of the talks, but what is expected is to be able to agree on dates for future talks," a diplomat close to the process told AFP. "We are looking at dates in December and January."

Peace broker Norway was unable to prepare a mutually agreed agenda for the two-day meeting.

The Tigers insists that humanitarian issues, including the reopening of a key highway to Sri Lanka's northern peninsula of Jaffna be taken up. However, the Sri Lankan government wants political issues thrashed out first.

Both are under international pressure to address human rights issues, with civilians increasingly caught up in fighting and even being targeted for attack.

Solheim noted that renewed fighting had also displaced over 200,000 people within the island.

"We would consider the outcome of the talks a success only if we can get the humanitarian issues sorted out over the weekend," Thamilselvan told AFP before the start of Saturday's meeting, highlighting road access to the northen Jaffna peninsula.

Thamilselvan said that failure of the Swiss talks could lead to "real, real war" in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka's only woman negotiator, Fariel Ashraff, who also represents a minority Muslim party, said she expected both parties to show flexibility despite rigid positions taken publicly.