SRI LANKA: Top Japanese envoy visits Tamil Tigers in an effort to revive peace talks

Record ID: 872687

  • Title: SRI LANKA: Top Japanese envoy visits Tamil Tigers in an effort to revive peace talks
  • Date: 9th May 2006
  • Summary: WIDE OF JOURNALISTS SURROUNDING AKASHI
  • Embargoed: 24th May 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Sri Lanka
  • City:
  • Country: Sri Lanka
  • Topics:
  • Reuters ID: LVA9S29W96TSS00KG04H7XXLTMS
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  • Story Text: A top Japanese peace envoy visited Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers on Tuesday (May 9) in a bid to convince them to resume talks, but left warning there was a risk the island could slide back into a civil war.
    Yasushi Akashi was expected to deliver a harsh warning to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) political wing that continued attacks on the military and failure to talk peace might spur the European Union to make good on a threat to ban them.
    Afterwards, he appealed to both sides to halt violence that has stretched a 2002 ceasefire to breaking point, and said he saw a risk of a return to a conflict that has already killed more than 64,000 people since 1983.
    "We discussed seriously how to resolve the present crisis. The atmosphere is very tense on both sides. Many people are apprehensive that war might start again. I think it is the responsibility of everybody to do his best to prevent escalation of the situation," Akashi told Reuters after meeting with the Tiger political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan in the LTTE's northern stronghold of Kilinochchi.
    The government however accused the rebels of stalling, and said a fresh LTTE demand that their eastern commanders be allowed to carry sidearm while being flown to the rebel-held north for a meeting -- the latest in a list of conditions for talks -- was absurd.
    "Of course in this situation the full compliance with the ceasefire agreement by both sides is absolutely essential," said Akashi.
    Antagonisms between the government and the rebels reached fever pitch in April amid a surge of suspected Tiger attacks, a suicide bombing, ethnic riots, and unsolved killings of civilians that left more than 200 people dead in the past month.
    And while a truce is holding in name at least, the island is locked in a low intensity conflict that some fear could spill over into a yet bloodier chapter in the LTTE's struggle for a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils.
    The Tigers accuse the military of working with a renegade faction of former comrades to kill Tamil civilians, a charge the government rejects outright.
    The military said the island was quiet on Tuesday (May 9), with no reports of violence in the east where the Tigers are feuding with the renegades.
    Trucks filled with goods resumed traffic towards the northern army-held enclave of Jaffna after the island's main north-south artery was closed on Monday, though Jaffna residents said they were having trouble finding diesel for their cars.
    Sri Lanka's parliament on Tuesday again extended by a month a state of emergency that has been in place since the island's former foreign minister was assassinated by suspected rebel snipers in August
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