COLOMBO, (AFP) - Norway will this week launch yet another bid to save Sri Lanka's tottering peace process amid fears for the Oslo-brokered ceasefire that went into effect in 2002 after three decades of ethnic bloodshed.
Peace broker Norway is sending its foreign minister Jan Petersen and two other top peace envoys to Sri Lanka on Wednesday for a fresh attempt to bridge the gulf between Colombo and Tamil Tiger rebels, diplomats said last week.
The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is also dispatching its London-based chief peace negotiator, Anton Balasingham, to join discussions with Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran and Petersen on Thursday.
"Those who are involved in the process are somewhat exasperated," a diplomatic source said Sunday. "This is not to say that either the Norwegians or the others supporting the process are ready to give up."
Norway's unease was underscored in its latest statement, issued Thursday, which said the purpose of Petersen's visit was to "hear from the parties how they intend to proceed in order to improve respect for the ceasefire agreement."
On the same day the statement was issued, two anti-Tiger activists were gunned down here and in a provincial town.
The Colombo government has accused the Tigers of killing more than 250 of their rivals since the ceasefire went into effect in February 2002. The decades of fighting has claimed about 60,000 lives.
Norway said it wanted ask the two sides "whether they wish to move towards resuming negotiations."
"Based on signals received from the parties over recent weeks, I do not have high expectations, but in difficult situations it is even more important to keep engaging with the parties," Petersen was quoted as saying in the statement.
Japan's special peace envoy to Sri Lanka, Yasushi Akashi, sounded more upbeat last week, saying at the end of a week-long visit that he hoped the two sides would get to the negotiating table soon.
Akashi, the key figure behind drumming up 4.5 billion dollars in international aid pledges to help rebuild Sri Lanka, has insisted that aid flows will increase based on progress in the peace process.
The Tigers have, however, demanded the removal of any linkage between aid and the peace process, saying they were not bound by a declaration on this issued by foreign donors who pledged the 4.5 billion dollars in Tokyo in June 2003.
The Tokyo aid conference called for tangible progress in the peace process before donors could release the aid spread over four years.
"We have already rejected the 'Tokyo Declaration' as an unwarranted intervention by extra-territorial forces in the peace process," Balasingham said last week.
The Tamil Tigers boycotted the aid meeting to protest the alleged failure of the Colombo government to deliver on promises made to them at six rounds of face-to-face talks between September 2002 and March 2003.
The Tigers pulled out of the negotiations in April last year.
They said last week that they had not abandoned their "right to secede", despite agreeing during the third round of negotiations to "explore" a federal solution.
11/07/2004 - 08:20 GMT - AFP