Nordic ceasefire monitors quit the country this year after the six-year
Earlier, Seevaratnam Puleedevan, secretary-general of the LTTE Peace Secretariat, said he wanted to meet directly with peace facilitators.
However, the government said the team headed by
"We don't want Mr. Baur coming up, so that they can take photographs of him and say 'Mr. Baur has come to see the terrible sufferings inflicted on Tamil people of the Tamil Ealam'. It can't be propaganda," Rajiva Wijesinghe, the secretary-general of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP), told Reuters late last Wednesday.
"Baur had wanted to go. But we have told him, we want a very clear idea of why you are going. It would mean a commitment of the LTTE and what they want Baur to come and talk about."
The government said it would only consider restarting the dead peace process when the LTTE agreed to a clear road map to ending the 25-year civil war.
The government's stance comes amid intensified fighting between the military and Tigers, after the government formally pulled out of the six-year-old Norwegian brokered ceasefire agreement.
"What the Sri Lankan government wants is - the Norwegians have to give us a clear road map," said Wijesinghe.
"Unless you have a clear road map that leads to a democratic political solution, I don't think you can take any LTTE claim to negotiate a deal.
"Part of that road map would be a ceasefire and commitment ... guaranteeing of laying down of arms. That road map should make very clear to us, there is a very genuine commitment to negotiate to a political solution."
If the Tigers want to pursue peace talks without laying down arms, they should at least guarantee de-commissioning of arms, Wijesinghe added.
The government’s response came after the LTTE ruled out the possibility of direct talks without
Puleedevan said while the LTTE had been in close contact with key Norwegian figures such as Erik Solheim and the Norwegian Ambassador, it would wait for the facilitators to be granted access to Kilinochchi to further discuss issues relating to future peace talks with the government.
“There are several issues we want to discuss with the Norwegian facilitators before discussing peace with the Sri Lankan government. We want to hold a meeting with the Norwegians. However the facilitators are not being granted access to enter Kilinochchi by the Sri Lankan government,” Puleedevan told the Daily Mirror in a telephone interview from Kilinochchi.
Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona had told the media in
“The LTTE is free to come back to the negotiating table but it must do so genuinely with a commitment to negotiating a sustainable peace and for that it must also leave aside its weaponry,” he had said.
Kohona said the LTTE had re-armed itself to hit back after the truce began in 2002, and vowed the present government was no longer willing to simply agree to a ceasefire agreement without a commitment on the part of the LTTE to achieve a final solution to this problem.
The LTTE Peace Secretariat Head meanwhile assured the safety of the Norwegians if they were to visit Kilinochchi adding that there were no security constraints in visiting the LTTE controlled areas.
“There are no security constraints in coming to Kilinochchi. We have people from the UN and other international organizations coming into our areas every day. This once again is only a false story just like my arrest,” Puleedevan told the Daily Mirror.
Dismissing reports that he had been arrested by the LTTE Intelligence services on the direct orders of LTTE Leader, Velupillai Pirapakaran, Puleedevan said the news items were all false as there was never a move to arrest anyone within the organization.
He also dismissed reports of an internal dispute within the LTTE, insisting that the organization continued to function as usual.
“The LTTE has no problems. Our only intention is to receive the Norwegians in Kilinochchi as they are the official facilitators. Till then we will not discuss anything,” he said.
