Sri Lankan Moderate Tamil Party Appoints New Leader

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, June 24, 2002

Sri Lankan Moderate Tamil Party Appoints New Leader

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Sri Lanka's main political party for the minority Tamil community the Tamil United Liberation Front(TULF) on Sunday appointed a new leader to lead the party after the death of its President M Sivasithamparam early this month.

Veerasingham Anandasangaree, a veteran parliamentarian representing the northern Jaffna district was appointed the president while Joseph Pararajasingham another legislator, vice President, the TULF sources said.

Sivasithamparam, a senior Tamil politician died this month after a long illness.

The role of TULF as a moderate political force is crucial to the success of the current Norwegian-brokered peace effort to end the island's drawn out ethnic conflict that has claimed over 64,000 lives since 1983.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels and the government are expected to sit down for peace talks which are expected to be held in Thailand next month.

The TULF which had no truck with the LTTE rebels in the armed conflict has recently adopted a stance of favor towards the rebels.

The party leads the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a coalition of parties which is being accused by the pro-Sinhala majority political parties as subservient to the LTTE rebels.

TNA has 15 members in the country's 225-member parliament.

The TULF sources said the deliberations were continuing with regard to the filling up of the parliamentary vacancy created by its late leader's death.

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