A political package aimed at solving Sri Lanka's long running separatist armed conflict was handed over to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse on Wednesday but its details have not been disclosed.
"An interim report was handed over to the president this evening," said an aide of President Rajapakse who did not want to be named.
Officials said Minister of Science and Technology Tissa Vitharana, who is also the head of the All Party Representatives Committee (APRC) presented the APRC's interim report to Rajapakse. However, the report will not be made public before being tabled to the cabinet.
According to the government's official website, Rajapakse said the finalizing of the proposals was the auspicious and important initial step towards solving the ethnic issue.
He said the government and all political parties that supported it undertook the responsibility to fully implementing the proposals.
Sources close to the government said the main proposals include enforcing the 13th amendment to the constitution, enforcing the existing official language policy, holding elections in the Eastern Province and setting up an interim administrative body for the Northern Province.
Rajapakse on Wednesday said that a political package based on the existing provincial council system could be presented as the solution to the ethnic separatist armed conflict.
He said the province based devolution in terms of the 13th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution adopted in 1987 was his personal preference as a solution.
The APRC was convened in January 2006 by Rajapakse to achieve consensus among political parties in order to formulate a solution to address Tamil minority's grievance of discrimination from the Sinhala majority community.
The APRC has met around 60 times before agreeing upon a final draft with political parties forwarding diverse proposals to the APRC.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been engaged in a war with the government since the mid-1980s to carve out a separate homeland for the minority Tamils in the north and east.
The bloody armed conflict has claimed over 70,000 lives despite efforts to resolve the conflict through negotiations.
Source: Xinhua
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