Kumaratunge meets Tokyo co-chairs

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 July 2005, 15:09 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunga met with diplomatic representatives of the four Co-Chairs of the Tokyo Donor Conference Monday to discuss the current state of the peace process and the status of the CeaseFire Agreement (CFA), a media release issued by SL President's Office said. On 15 July the co-chairs issued a statement expressing alarm at the escalating violence, and called on the LTTE to stop killings, and the Government of Sri Lanka to disarm all paramilitaries and to guarantee security to unarmed LTTE cadres.

US Ambassador Jeffrey Lunstead, High Commissioner S.N. Evans of the U.K, Norwegian Charge d'Affaires Oddvar Laegreid, and Japan's Charge d'Affairs Hirochi Karube represented the donors.

Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, Jayantha Dhanapala and Foreign Secretary HMGS Palihakkara accompanied Ms Kumaratunge to the discussions.

Ms Kumaratunge "acknowledged that there is deterioration in the security situation," and pointed out that "it is unfortunate that the four Co-Chairs repeated the position of the LTTE about the Government's support to "paramilitary groups."" She added that "Government's obligations to disarm paramilitary groups under the Ceasefire Agreement was completed to the satisfaction of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM)," the media release said.

She also pointed out the number of LTTE violations of the CFA including child recruitment and killing of GOSL policemen and soldiers, and urged the donors to exert pressure on the LTTE to curb such activities, the release said.

Liberation Tigers accuse the Government of Sri Lanka and the intelligence wing of the Sri Lanka military for supporting paramilitaries to conduct a shadow war against the LTTE in the east. They also accuse the Sri Lanka military for not vacating the schools and public buildings in NorthEast as stipulated in the Memorandum of Understanding.