The rebels' Political Head B Nadesan in Sri Lanka said on Thursday that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) requested Norway to continue with its facilitation role with the support of the International Community.
The LTTE Political leader B Nadesan met the Head of Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) Major General Lars Johan Solvberg in Ki'linochchi this morning as part of the SLMM winding-up operation, following the government announcement of unilateral withdrawal from the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA).
B Nadesan handed a statement signed by him to the SLMM Head of Mission which said "the LTTE wishes to state that even at this juncture, it is ready to implement every clause of the CFA agreement and respect it 100 percent. We also request that Norway should continue with its facilitation role with the support of the international community."
The statement also urged the international community to "remove the bans it has placed on the LTTE" and "recognize the right of the Tamil people to live with self-determination in their homeland."
The Peace Secretariat of LTTE said a similar signed statement was also given to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry through the SLMM Head of Mission.
The SLMM is in the process of winding-up its operation in the island by on Jan. 16.
The Sri Lankan government made the policy decision to withdraw from the ceasefire agreement on Jan. 2 after an Army bus was attacked in Colombo by suspected LTTE rebels, killing four people and injuring 24 others.
Both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE have been accused of blatant violations since it came into force in Feb. 22, 2002.
The government and the LTTE held eight rounds of talks after signing the ceasefire agreement, but failed to find a political solution to the island's long drawn-out ethnic conflict.
More than 5,000 people have been killed as the conflict between the government and the LTTE began to escalate in the end of 2005, making the Norwegian brokered ceasefire agreement exist only on paper.
Claiming discrimination at the hands of the Sinhala majority, the LTTE has been fighting the government since the mid-1980s to establish a separate homeland for the minority Tamils in the north and east.
Source:Xinhua
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