The face-to-face talks between the Sri Lanka government and the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels in Geneva over the
weekend have failed due to the issue of opening a highway, said the
government on Monday.
The Health Minister Nimal Siripala De Silva who led the
government delegation at the 2-day talks was quoted by the state
radio Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation as saying that the LTTE
maintained a rigid position on the issue of opening the A9
highway.
"We told the LTTE that the road closure was a temporary measure
and it was in no way connected to the humanitarian supplies issue
raised by the Tigers," De Silva told the radio.
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The LTTE made the opening of the A9 highway between the northern
Jaffna peninsula and the central town of Kandy as the main issue on
the 2-day talks.
Their position was that continued closure of the highway had
denied civilian access to the peninsula and cut off humanitarian
supplies such as food and medicine.
The A9 highway came to be shut with the outbreak of hostilities
in the Jaffna peninsula on Aug. 11.
But De Silva said that government has effectively used the sea
route available in sending essential supplies via ship from the
capital Colombo and accused the Tigers of even targeting such
vessels.
De Silva said "the talks were not successful and we were not
able to agree for further talks."
The 2-day Geneva talks, the first direct talks between the
warring parties for eight months came after an upsurge of violence
that had accounted for more than 3,000 lives since the end of
2005.
The international community urged the two sides to give up
violence and sit down in order to further the Norwegian backed
truce, which is very much in tatters.
The two sides clashed with the agenda for talks -- the
government insisting that the core political issues to the
separatist armed conflict be looked at as opposed to the LTTE
stance on the opening of the A9 highway and humanitarian supplies
to the north.
More than 64,000 people were killed in the island's armed ethnic
conflict between the mid-1980s and February 2002 when the
Norwegians brokered a ceasefire.
(Xinhua News Agency October 30, 2006)
