Sri Lankan Tamil rebels hand over peace proposals to Norwegian facilitators

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, October 31, 2003

Sri Lankan Tamil rebels hand over peace proposals to Norwegian facilitators

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Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels on Friday handed over their counter proposals on an interim administration to be set up in the country's war-battered north and east to the Norwegian peace facilitators, diplomatic sources said.

Norwegian ambassador to Sri Lanka Hans Brattskar, who traveled to the north town of Kilinochchi held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels early on Friday, received the proposals on power sharing with the government.

He will return to capital Colombo by an army helicopter later Friday to present the rebel proposals to the government.

The content of the interim administration proposals will be kept on hold by both the government and the LTTE rebels until Saturday when the LTTE rebels make public the proposals in Kilinochchi at a press conference.

Constitutional Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris, the government spokesman, told reporters here on Thursday that the government will make a brief response to the rebel proposals on Saturday.

The LTTE rebels traveled to Europe twice earlier this year to consult with their constitutional and legal experts for the finalizing of their proposals in response to the government proposals handed over to them through Norwegian facilitators in mid July.

The presentation of the rebel proposals to the government is deemed as remarkable as it is the first time that the rebels have worked out their own proposals aimed at ending the country's two decades of bloody ethnic war.

The government has said that the preliminary talks with the LTTE will start in November or early December and the next round of formal talks are expected to commence early next year.

The LTTE rebels pulled out the Norwegian-brokered peace talks in April following six rounds of previous talks since September last year.

They later demanded the setting up of an interim administration in the north and east with greater power granted for them to reconstruct the areas.

Fighting between the government troops and the LTTE which has claimed over 6,4000 lives since it erupted in 1983 came to a halt when the two sides entered a formal ceasefire in February last year.

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