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Sri Lanka to hold local elections in troubled east |
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20:26, July 03, 2007 |
The Sri Lankan government plans to hold local council elections in the island's troubled Eastern Province as soon as possible, a senior minister said Tuesday.
Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, the minister of Highways said that the government was hoping to announce the date for elections within three weeks.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse told the government parliamentary group recently that Eastern Province has almost been cleared and it will only be a matter of time before the entire province was freed from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) .
Government troops say they are on the verge of capturing Thoppigala jungles in the eastern Batticaloa district from LTTE control.
Thoppigala is the last LTTE bastion in the east after the fall of Sampur and Vakarai to government troops since last September.
Since the 1998 local elections the security situation prevailing in Eastern Province has forced the postponement of elections.
The province became volatile since the LTTE's then eastern commander Karuna alias Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan broke ranks with the main stream Tamil Tigers.
It was only late last month that the Elections Department announced the further postponement of the elections in the province until February 2008 citing security fears.
Eastern Province came to be separated from Northern Province in terms of a court order late last year.
Nearly 5,000 people were killed in violence since the end of 2005 in the escalation of the armed conflict in the Northern and Eastern provinces.
Source: Xinhua
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