Sri Lanka peace overture

Sri Lankans are upbeat about the prospect of peace

By Frances Harrison BBC correspondent in Colombo

Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has suggested a committee be set up including the Tamil Tiger rebel group to recommend solutions to the ethnic conflict.

The clear failure of the Sri Lankan state to protect its Tamil citizens in July 1983...was a failure I deeply regret

President Kumaratunga

In a speech to mark the eighth anniversary of her coming to power, President Kumaratunga said she was glad steps taken in the last year to reduce tensions between the warring parties seemed to have progressed satisfactorily.

The president is making increasingly positive statements about the way her rival, Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, is handling the current peace process.

President Kumaratunga said she was glad Mr Wickramasinghe's new government had carried forward the peace process started by her.

Transition

And she said she was pleased the government had taken notice of her insistence that a dialogue begin with the rebels on the core issues - those of power-sharing and democratic guarantees that need to be resolved in a final political settlement.

The president proposed a new 'peace committee'

She added that it was a good development that the Tigers were not insisting on an interim administration in the north-east as a step towards a final settlement.

She said her People's Alliance party, along with other opposition parties, felt a transitional administration should only be considered after a negotiated settlement had been worked out and the rebels agreed to lay down their arms.

In what looks like a bid to play a greater role in the peace process, President Kumaratunga suggested a national committee for ethnic reconciliation and sustainable peace be set up.

She said this should include all the political parties in parliament as well as major non-governmental organisations and the Tamil Tiger rebel group.

Rivalry

The committee, the president explained, would look into identifying the core issues of the conflict and recommend solutions which could be based on the proposals worked out by her government when it was in power.

It is unlikely this committee will be set up soon as the government will argue that it is already addressing these issues in the peace process.

And according to the Norwegian mediators, the current exercise is making very encouraging progress.

But it shows Mrs Kumaratunga wants to be included in the process now that it seems to be going well.

She repeated her appeal to her political rival, the prime minister, to put the petty political bickering of the past behind them.

But nobody from Mr Wickramasinghe's United National Party attended the ceremony to mark the president's eight years in office.