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Solheim apprises Chandrika of his talks with Prabhakaran

Efforts to end Sri Lanka's two-decade old ethnic crisis gained momentum on Friday with Norwegian special envoy Eric Solheim, who is brokering peace between Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels and the government, apprising President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Indian High Commissioner G K Gandhi of his talks with LTTE chief V Prabhakaran held two days back.

Norwegian officials said in Colombo on Friday night that Solheim's meeting with Kumaratunga, which was delayed due to the swearing-in ceremony of the deputy ministers, finally took place late in the evening.

Amid speculation of declaration of cease fire followed by commencement of a fresh round of peace talks, the president held prolonged discussions with Solheim to chalk out her own response to the unconditional peace talks offer made by Prabhakaran during his meeting with the Norwegian envoy.

Earlier, Solheim also met India High Commissioner Goplakrishna Gandhi and briefed him about the details of his meeting with the LTTE leader.

Solheim was scheduled to leave for Oslo on Friday night.

The talks with Kumaratunga assumed significance following Thursday's clarification by Solheim that Prabhakaran sounded very serious about resuming the peace process and has not set any preconditions.

In view of this, Chandrika too was expected to come up with a matching response.

Officials in Colombo said that Prabhakaran's willingness to sit for a dialogue has also necessitated a positive and concrete response from the government even though there was scepticism in official circles about the seriousness of the LTTE's offer in view of the bitter experiences in the past.

However, they were hopeful of a positive response as the government had, even in the past, declared its intention to have unconditional talks.

Meanwhile, there was speculation in army circles that Kumaratunga might agree for a cease fire even though she was not expected to accept the LTTE's suggestion to withdraw troops from the troubled north and east.

Peace talks were scheduled to begin early this year at Norway's capital Oslo when both sides accepted the Norwegian government as a third party facilitator. However, the proposal was abandoned after the LTTE launched an offensive to recapture northern Jaffna Peninsula in April this year.

Meanwhile, Chandrika has officially clarified that she has not sent any message to Prabhakaran through Solheim.

An official statement stated that the Norwegian envoy had met Prabhakaran at the invitation of the latter and the government only granted necessary clearances to visit LTTE-controlled Vanni region.

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