Military

LTTE accuses Lankan government of violating the agreements

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New Colombo, March 24, IRNA
SLanka-LTTE-Peace
Sri Lankan rebels, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) accused the Lankan government of violating the agreements reached in Switzerland.

The LTTE said, Colombo insists that they should not hoist their own Tiger flags at offices they want to re-open in the Jaffna peninsula, PTI report said here.

The government has also forbidden the rebels from using school children for any activity while demanding that the guerrillas will not stage any anti-government or anti-security force demonstrations.

The Tigers said the conditions were unacceptable and a violation of the agreements reached in Switzerland.

The two sides during their talks last month agreed to scale down violence and meet again in April to discuss the implementation of their tenuous truce that has been in place since February 2002.

"We reject the concept of anybody laying conditions for our members doing political work with our people," the LTTE's political wing leader S. P. Thamilselvan, said in a letter to Scandinavian truce monitors.

"Geneva talks and the understanding ensued therein is totally nullified by this stance of the Sri Lankan Government," Thamilselvan said in his letter published on the rebels' official website.

It said the talks scheduled for next month could be in jeopardy because of the latest stand-off over the political offices.

There was no immediate reaction from the government or the security forces, but police said pro-Tiger groups had put up Tiger flags at Jaffna schools raising tension.

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