Colombo, June 22: Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe left for London today for high-level meetings that will attempt to jump-start the island's peace process, a senior government official said. Wickremesinghe is scheduled to meet Norwegian deputy foreign minister Vidar Helgesen tomorrow to discuss the government's deadlock with the Tamil tiger rebels, who are demanding an interim administration in exchange for re-entering peace talks, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Norway brokered a cease-fire between the government and the rebels in February 2002, halting 19 years of civil war. The two sides held six rounds of talks until the rebels pulled out this past April, saying the government was not doing enough for the country's Tamil minority.
The rebels want more autonomy in areas where most of Sri Lanka's 3.2 million Tamils live, charging discrimination by the Sinhalese, who number 14 million. The war killed more than 65,000 people and displaced 1.6 million.
Wickremesinghe, accompanied by the island's attorney general K C Kamalasabaysen, will talk with British legal experts about the process for setting up an interim administration in the Tamil-dominated northeast, the official said.
Norwegian facilitators are expected to convey the Sri Lankan government's fresh moves to end the deadlock during a meeting with the rebels' chief negotiator Anton Balasingham, who is based in London, the official said.
He said the rebels' input will be sought before finalising any proposal. Bureau Report