There has been some confusion with regard to the reasons for the failure to resume talks with the LTTE last year. The Government wishes to clarify this issue with regard to efforts to draw up an agenda for the resumption of peace talks prior to the devastation wrought by the tsunami in December. The Government has always expressed its willingness to begin talks immediately. It has emphasized the importance of direct negotiations as a means of building confidence, maintaining the ceasefire and improving the climate for a durable solution to the ethnic conflict. Unfortunately, the LTTE did not share this view and insisted on opening negotiations on the basis of a single agenda item and based solely on the specific LTTE proposals of the Interim Self Governing Authority. The Government has never agreed to this.

During efforts to evolve an agenda for peace talks, the Government has agreed to the concept of setting up an Interim Authority within the context of negotiating a permanent settlement to the ethnic conflict, on the basis that an Interim Authority will be useful in a transitional period from a situation of conflict to one of democracy. Agreeing to negotiate an Interim Authority in such a context is very different from opening negotiation solely on the basis of the LTTE demand of the Interim Self Governing Authority, which prevents the re-opening of direct negotiations.

This view has been articulated in previous statements excerpted below.

Her Excellency the President’s speech at the inaugural meeting of the National Advisory Council for Peace and Reconciliation (NACPR) on 4th October 2004 where she said:

“The Government’s position has been that we accept the concept of setting up an Interim Administration in the interim period whilst a permanent solution is negotiated and implemented. But we require commitment from the LTTE that the Interim Administration as well as the final solution would be based on the Oslo Declaration.”

The GOSL Press Release of 1st December 2004 in response to the LTTE leader’s statement of November 2004:

‘A call … from the LTTE now for the resumption of negotiations without conditions, while setting conditions itself by insisting unilaterally on a single agenda item is scarcely conducive to good faith negotiations. The Government of Sri Lanka has conveyed publicly, and through the kind facilitation of the Royal Norwegian Government, its readiness to discuss the establishment of an Interim Authority to meet the urgent humanitarian and development needs of the people of the North and East as a priority, while exploring a permanent settlement along the lines of the document signed and accepted by the Government and the LTTE in Oslo on December 5, 2002.’

S. D. Piyadasa
Director of Government Information