No room for hypocrisy in implementing CFA - Thamilchelvan

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 April 2006, 10:56 GMT]
Armed activities of the paramilitary groups have intensified following the first session of Geneva Talks contrary to the commitment made by the Sri Lanka Government to the February 2002 Cease Fire Agreement (CFA). Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse can no longer pay lip service to CFA after the route of the extreme Sinhala hardline forces in the local elections in the South, LTTE Political Head S.P. Thamilchelvan told reporters in Kilinochchi after meeting the newly appointed Norwegian Special Envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer on Wednesday.

Special Envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer and the Norwegian Ambassador to Sri Lanka Hans Brattskar met Liberation Tigers Political Head in Kilinochchi Wednesday.

"The meeting with the new Norwegian Special Envoy was cordial. We discussed the changes in the ground situation, specially the intensified activities by the paramilitary groups violating the pledges made by Colombo in Geneva," LTTE Poltitical Head told the reporters at LTTE Peace Secretariat. "Colombo can no longer cite the extremist forces in the South as an excuse for the difficulty in implementing commitments to the International Community and the facilitators."

The LTTE leadership would be forced to reconsider its decision to engage in direct talks if Colombo continued to adopt a duplicitous approach, the LTTE Political Head said.

There is hardly any use in proceeding to next stage before what was agreed and re-affirmed at the first session of talks is implemented, he further said.

Norwegian International Development Minister Erik Solheim and his Special Envoy Hanssen-Bauer are scheduled to meet Sri Lankan President Thursday.