Budget support conditional on peace agenda- Wickremasinghe

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 October 2006, 01:34 GMT]
"We will not oppose the Budget of the government once the peace process is on the track moving forward," said Ranil Wickremasinghe, leader of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) addressing a press conference held at Cambridge Place Thursday. The United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government is to table its Budget for the year 2007 in the second week of November, parliamentary sources in Colombo said.

Mr.Ranil Wickremesinghe met with the press following the discussion with the President Thursday morning at Temple Trees. The discussion centred on the six-point programme agreed by the SLFP and UNP at the conclusion of four rounds of talks.

The seventh point in the programme is that UNP to offer structural co-operation to the government by joining its cabinet, sources said.

Wickremesinghe said he had informed the President during the discussion that his party working committee would decide later on the seventh point, offering structural co-operation to the government.

The first point in the common minimum programme agreed by the two parties is to find resolution to the ethnic conflict.

Wickremesinghe said he and Mr.Rajapakse would be chairing the joint committee on ethnic conflict once the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is signed by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and UNP.

SLFP and UNP have reached a consensus on a six-point programme that includes:

• The conflict in the North and East
• Electoral Reforms
• Good Governance
• Economic Development
• Nation Building (education reform)
• Social Development