Thirty observers from Norway and Iceland who had been monitoring a failed peace process in Sri Lanka have been ordered to leave the troubled country within 12 days, according to reports reaching in Stockholm from Oslo on Friday.
It is a major process, but the monitors would be packed up and out within the deadline, which was set for Jan, 16, Pia Hansson, one member of the Monitoring Mission, told Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten over the telephone.
"On a personal level, we are all disappointed," she added.
The monitors must leave Sri Lanka after government officials formally announced this week that they are terminating a ceasefire agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The ceasefire had been hammered out nearly six years ago by Norwegian peace brokers.
The Tamil Tigers want to establish their own state in the north of Sri Lanka, but are widely viewed by many countries as a terrorist group. Norway and Iceland are among the few countries in the world who have not stamped the Tamil Tigers as terrorists, according to Aftenposten.
Source: Xinhua
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