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Lanka-LTTE trust at rockbottom, say Nordic monitors

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New Delhi, Feb 16, IRNA
Sri Lanka-LTTE-Truce monitors
Nordic truce monitors, overseeing the shaky truce between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for the past four years, said mutual trust between the two parties is at rockbottom and that confidence-building measures were needed to take the Norwegian-brokered peace process forward.

At a time when the Lankan government and LTTE are making hectic preparations to hold direct talks in Geneva next week, the Nordic truce monitors said "confidence-building measures are inevitable." "The atmosphere of confidence between the two parties is at rockbottom level. The air between them is poisoned. They need to implement confidence-building measures in practical terms to overcome the situation and advance the peace process forward," the head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Hagrup Haukland, said at meeting of Sri Lanka's Foreign Correspondents' Association in Colombo, a media report said here today.

He said the opening of more entry-exit points between the government-held areas and the LTTE-held areas to help in the movement of civilians could be one such confidence-building measure, adding "it is up to the parties to implement them or not."
The Sri Lankan government and LTTE are set to hold direct talks in Geneva on February 22 and 23 on the effective implementation of the ceasefire agreement that is under serious threat.

Haukland will represent the SLMM in the meeting.

Claiming that security in Lanka's north-east, which was at "its worst" during the past couple of months, "is quite calm after the government and the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) agreed to hold talks in Geneva," Haukland however added that there "are armed elements operating especially in the East," and working hard to destabilize the entire process.

"This is one of the key issues. We have informed the government about it, but authorities are not eager to arrest them. Something has to be done on the operations of these armed elements because they have no rights to disturb and destablize the situation," he said.

Answering a question with regard to the much-spoken mandate of the SLMM, Haukland said that the Nordic mission would not look for an expanded mandate to monitor the truce pact at the upcoming Geneva talks, "but we are prepared to give our view on the implementation of part of it," he added.

"If the parties want and agree to amend the ceasefire agreement, it is up to them. As far as the SLMM is concerned, we are quite comfortable with it. But the parties need to recommit themselves to adhere to the provisions of the agreement in its truce spirit," he said.

If the parties do not agree on the effective and smooth implementation of the agreement at the Geneva talks, "then the situation will be worse than ever before," he added.

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