US official to visit Sri Lanka

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, December 12, 2003

US official to visit Sri Lanka

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Nicholas Dean, deputy director of the Office for India, Nepal and Sri Lankan Affairs within the US Department of State's Bureau of South Asian Affairs, will visit Sri Lanka next week, the US embassy here said in a statement Thursday.

During his visit here, Dean will meet with a variety of government officials, political leaders, non-governmental groups and private individuals in capital Colombo and northern Jaffna peninsula, the statement said.

The US government supports the Norwegian-brokered peace processin the country and has urged the Sri Lankan government to resume direct talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels at the earliest.

The peace talks between the two sides were stalemated in April by the rebels following six rounds of previous talks since September last year.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who sacked three key ministers of her arch political rival Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe while he was on an official visit to the United States early last month, said that the government could go ahead with the scheduled resumption of the peace talks with the LTTE rebels in January nextyear.

However, Wickremesinghe insists that he could not be responsible for the peace talks without the power of the Defense Ministry, which the president has refused to hand it over to his government on the ground of national security.

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