I am happy to say that the All Party Representatives Committee which met last night has agreed to several important issues.

Given the importance of the decisions reached, it was decided to call a special media conference immediately to explain these issues.

The APRC has been meeting regularly every week and during these discussions, which have been carried out in a very friendly atmosphere, we have been able to progress from identifying the various stakeholders who are involved in the current national conflict and discussing the issues and problems faced by them to an unanimous consensus by all members last night, to agree to the concept of devolution.

The members had earlier  agreed to use the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka as a starting point for their debate. There is agreement and support by all parties to solving the national question through devolution.

Members have also taken a decision to agree to requests from  Mr Anandasangaree of the TULF and the leaders of EPRLF and PLOTE to address the APRC.

The APRC hopes that the UNP will be represented at its future meetings. It is proposed that the APRC will then be briefed by the Chairman of the Expert Panel who will present the highlights of the report prepared by this Panel.

The APRC will then examine the report in close discussions with their respective parties before assembling again to discuss alternative proposals and arrive at a common position. Finally the APRC will meet with the Expert Panel and obtain their expertise in relation to any modifications that need to be made in order to come up with a proposal that could be presented to the All Party Conference (APC).

The APRC is confident that they will be able to present a solution in relation to the national question in the near future.

It is indeed very heartening to note that the various party representatives have expressed their opinions and views openly. I am happy to say that everyone has given the courtesy of a hearing to the representatives of the various parties whether they agreed with them or not.  And as a result, there has been a considerable understanding developed of the different view points and why those view points have been arrived at.  And through this process we have been able to identify the various issues, problems facing the different stakeholders and various ideas and views have been expressed which will help towards working out a common solution to this problem. 

In this connection I would like to state that we have been examining this as an internal problem affecting all the people of Sri Lanka.  Each and everyone of our parties has a responsibility to assist in trying to work out a solution and to do this, to give an example, the question came up about how do we ensure that devolution is done effectively so that it benefits everybody and reaches the village.  On this question, we visited India last month at the invitation of the Indian Government and looked at the devolution process and mechanisms  in India and how it is taken down to the village or Panchayat Raj  level.

The general consensus among us had been that we had to go through this process of understanding and working out a solution ourselves and this would take a little time and we were  not going to be hurried to meet deadlines.  This decision has proved fruitful as we have arrived at the all important consensus to agree to the concept of devolution.

We will as quickly as possible try to reach a final consensus and come out with a common position which can be the basis for talks with all parties concerned to work out a lasting negotiated solution to the national question.