Sri Lankan donor co-chairs to meet in Oslo

Sri Lanka's donor co-chairs who back the faltering peace process in the island country will meet in Oslo on June 26 to discuss the present situation, the Norwegian embassy said here Saturday in a statement.

"It will be a working meeting and follows several recent high- level visits to Sri Lanka," Norwegian Minister of International Development Erik Solheim was quoted as saying.

"The purpose of the meeting is to share information and views. The co-chairs will explore ways and means in which the group, as a whole or as individual countries, can continue helping the parties to cease violence and return to the negotiating table," Solheim added.

The United States, Japan, Norway and the European Union banded together in 2003 in Tokyo to underwrite the Norwegian-backed process to bring peace to this Indian ocean island through negotiations to end its debilitating separatist war between government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels.

Their last meeting was held in Washington last November. The Norwegian-backed process and the February 2002 truce agreement is on hold as violence has erupted, killing about 5,000 people, since the end of 2005.

Both sides have resisted calls to get back on the negotiating table, blaming each other for violence.

The government maintains it continues its battle against terrorism unleashed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the LTTE maintains that they are countering a military campaign by the government against the Tamil minority.

The LTTE has been fighting for a separate Tamil homeland in the island's north and east since the 1970s.

They claim the majority Sinhalese community-led governments have discriminated the Tamil minority since 1948 when the island gained independence from Britain.

Source: Xinhua