Sri Lanka reopened its "Highway of Death" on Friday, accomplishing with a gesture of goodwill what some of the bloodiest battles in the two-decade-old ethnic war failed to achieve. The reopening of the A-9 highway comes as the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels say they are close to signing a deal for an indefinite ceasefire as they ready for the first face-to-face talks since the last round collapsed seven years ago.
"It's a confidence-building measure, the whole issue of trying to normalise the situation for the people living in Wanni," said Economic Reform Minister Milinda Moragoda, who is part of the government's Peace Secretariat for dealing with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
"There is a lot of mistrust and we are trying to overcome that," said Moragoda, who travelled to Omanthai about 270 km (167 miles) north of the capital Colombo.

The A-9 highway runs from central Sri Lanka to Jaffna peninsula in the north, cutting through a huge swathe of rebel-held jungle known as Wanni, home to 370,000 people living in some of the worst poverty in the country.
The road was dubbed the "Highway of Death" during 1997-98 when the military conducted its biggest-ever offensive since the ethnic war started in 1983. Bureau Report