"The LTTE never had an honest or sincere commitment to the peace process. It does not want a political solution, but merely wants a legitimate hold on what is under its control now," EPDP member and former MP K. Vigneswaran told the Daily Mirror yesterday after meeting Norwegian Special Envoy Erik Solheim and Ambassador Hans Brattskar along with EPDP members led by Minister Douglas Devananda on Tuesday.
Mr. Devananda had requested the Norwegian facilitators to try to put an end to the killings allegedly carried out by the LTTE. Up to date more than 114 EPDP frontliners have been gunned down since the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement in February 2002.
However, the EPDP which is the main Tamil ally of the UPFA Government claimed that the Government was ready to resume talks with the LTTE even immediately based on the LTTE-proposed Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA), but it was the LTTE which was putting off the resumption of the talks.
"Their first excuse for not agreeing to resume talks was the Karuna factor, but now that Karuna is out of the picture they are making statements to the effect that they are having problems due to Karuna's associates," Mr. Vigneswaran said.
The EPDP is also reported to have told the Norwegian delegation that there was no point in the international community meeting LTTE political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan as it was only LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran who knows the Tiger organisation's real stand on the peace process.
(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2004/09/16/news/21.asp)
