Protest march staged in N.Sri Lanka

Hundreds of thousands of people participated in a protest march held in Sri Lanka's northern Jaffna town on Thursday, urging the government to take steps to push forward the country's stalled peace process.

The demonstrators demanded the restoration of normal life and the establishment of the Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA) in the war-battered north and east put forward by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at the end of last October.

They also asked the government to expedite the rehabilitation of internally displaced persons during the two decades of ethnic war in the country.

The organizers of the protest march handed over copies of memorandum to the local representatives of the international organizations including United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) supervising current ceasefire between the government and the LTTE rebels.

They also handed over letters to President Chandrika Kumaratunga, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe through local government officers, urging them to take immediate steps to fulfill their demands.

The peace talks between the government and the LTTE rebels have been deadlocked since last April and the insistence of the rebels on the establishment of the ISGA has further delayed the resumption of the talks.

Both sides are yet to reach compromise over the agenda for the resumption of the Norwegian-brokered peace talks and the government said that they are committed to the political solution to the country's two decades of ethnic conflict.

The two sides have been observing ceasefire since February 2002 which was followed by six rounds of direct talks seven months later until the rebel pullout in April last year.