Sri Lanka’s key foreign backers welcomed on Friday an agreement by the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels to resume peace talks and urged them to work to halt violence.
Japan, the largest aid donor to the country, praised Norway for breaking on Wednesday a three-year deadlock in the peace process by clinching a deal for the warring parties to meet face-to-face in Geneva by mid-February.
”The government of Japan strongly hopes that escalating violence in the North and East [of the island] will be stopped, and actual talks … will commence at an earliest possible date,” the Japanese embassy here said.
Tokyo helped organise a meeting of international aid donors in June 2003 and raised $4,5-billion tied to progress on a peace settlement. Much of the money remains unspent because of the lack of progress.
”Japan remains committed to supporting the efforts of the parties to the conflict towards achieving a lasting peace through pursuing the negotiated settlement of the conflict,” the statement said.
At least 152 people have been killed since December in Sri Lanka’s latest wave of violence. But attacks between rebels and soldiers have dropped in the two days since Norwegian envoy Erik Solheim brokered the agreement.
Sri Lanka’s former colonial ruler Britain also applauded Solheim’s efforts. London welcomed the agreement for February talks between Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is banned in Britain, on fully implementing a truce in place since 2002.
”This is an important step,” Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said in a statement received here. ”The Sri Lankan people want and deserve peace.”
He said maintaining the ceasefire and ending violence was essential for all parties to create the right climate for a final peace settlement.
Switzerland also praised the breakthrough and said it was ready to host talks next month and provide Norway with any assistance in the leadup.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and the United States, which has tagged the LTTE as a foreign terrorist organisation, added their support shortly after the deal was struck.
More than 60 000 people have been killed in the Tamil separatist conflict and four previous attempts at peace have ended in failure. – AFP
