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Ceasefire with LTTE won't be under int'l pressure: Sri Lanka

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New Delhi, April 18, IRNA -- Amid calls from global community for a ceasefire in Sri Lanka's north, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said that no decision about the truce with the Tamil Tigers will be taken under 'international influence'.

"We are not ready to make any decision which harms the country and which is influenced by the international community," he told a meeting of his Sri Lankan Freedom Party.

"The people have the sole right to decide on the suitability of the government's decision," he said Thursday, PTI reported here today.

Rajapaksa also said that some politicians who travel around the world 'betraying the country and misleading the international community' have no right to make decisions on the government's policies.

"We are not willing to take any decision regarding the country based on international influence. The decisions taken by the government for the betterment of the country are based on the expectations of its people," he told the gathering.

"The only request made by the people is that the country should be united and not divided," the president said.

He said the nation must be rescued from those 'who signed agreements to divide the country and break it up into pieces and to create a new state'.

"We would like to say clearly that the SLFP together with the United People's Freedom alliance (UPFA) is a democratic party that is ready to bow down to people's wishes at any time," Rajapaksa said.

Meanwhile, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the powerful defense secretary, earlier told top UN official Vijay Nambiar, whose visit to Sri Lanka ended yesterday, that the government could not restrict military operations now because LTTE did not release civilians during the 48-hour pause that ended on Tuesday night.

"I told him (Nambiar) that we cannot extend our decision to restrict offensive military operations because there was no result during the previous halt in the fighting," he said.

According to reports, only 815 Tamil civilians could cross over from the LTTE areas to the government-controlled region in Pudukudiyirippu during those two days.

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End News / IRNA / News Code 441475