The Government of Sri Lanka, having considered the message conveyed to it by the Norwegian facilitator that the LTTE is agreeable to resume talks, has accommodated the suggestion to hold talks on October 28 and 29 in Switzerland.

The Government has informed the facilitators that, consistent with its repeated commitment made at the highest levels of its willingness to engage in discussions to resolve the conflict, it proposes to engage in a discussion of substantive issues with the LTTE with a view to obtaining a permanent solution.

The Government reiterates, that it has repeatedly and sincerely requested the LTTE to return to the negotiations and the LTTE has consistently refused to do so without reason. Instead, the LTTE, in the course of a campaign of violence lasting months, has committed blatant violations of its own commitments, including the killing of over 70 civilians in Kebitigollawa in a claymore mine attack, the many suicide attacks, the forcible closing of the Mawilaru Anicut depriving over 15,000 families in the Trincomalee District of water for weeks on end, wreaking indiscriminate destruction on the predominantly Muslim township of Muttur, rendering 53,000 homeless, including massive attacks on the forward defence lines in the North and, most recently, unsuccessfully attempting to smuggle a shipload of weapons.

The government has also indicated to the facilitators, that if at any time the LTTE undertook actions of an offensive and provocative nature, the government reserves the right to take counter measures in the interests of national security.