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Third round ends on positive note : Parties agree to final solution within united Lanka

By Arjuna Ranawana in Oslo

The Third round of peace talks between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ended yesterday with the dramatic announcement that the sides were agreed to seek a federal solution within a united Sri Lanka to the country's long standing national question.

In a statement released at mid-day, the two sides said they have agreed to "explore a solution founded on the principle of internal self-determination in areas of historical habitation of the Tamil-speaking peoples, based on a federal structure within a united Sri Lanka" on a proposal made to the parley by the Tiger leadership.

The parties acknowledged that the solution has to be acceptable to all communities.

The definition of the Tamil speaking areas has been co-opted from the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987.

Both sides said it would require the drafting of a new Constitution for Sri Lanka to put into place the power-sharing arrangement between the centre and the region as well as within the centre.

The government's Chief Negotiator Minister Professor G.L. Peiris said the current development was "foreshadowed" by statements made by Balasingham at the first two rounds in Thailand.

"Then there was the explicit statement made by Velupillai Prabhakaran in his Heroes' Day speech in which he said the LTTE is no longer insisting on a separate state."

He explained that what he sought "was extensive power-sharing within one country."

"That was a point of departure," Prof Peiris noted.

"The position of the government is also that it stands for substantial power-sharing within the contours of one country," he said.

However the "historic and unprecedented breakthrough on Wednesday....was the explicit identification of a Federal structure which will be the basis on which the political structure will be evolved".

The LTTE's Chief Negotiator Anton Balasingham said the LTTE had settled for a solution within a united Sri Lanka "which no doubt the Sinhalese people would much appreciate".

Prof Peiris also said that the current process, particularly the notion of federalism had continuum tat dates back to the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact up to the proposals put forward by President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga in 1995 and in 2000. Therefore he said he did not see a problem of creating a national consensus on the issue.

He also noted that the peace process was also now "irreversible" because from a political, economic and social sense a point had been reached "where now there is no question of going back to war". He added that the current constitution does not guarantee the rights of the minorities to the extent the LTTE requires.

Future discussions will be held over the geographical region, the protection of human rights, political and administrative mechanism, public finance and law and order when they meet again in Thailand between the 6th and 9th of January.

On Wednesday the negotiators said the discussions were heading towards completing a framework for a political solution to what the LTTE terms as the fifty-year dispute between the State and the Tamil community.

It represents a paradigm shift from the LTTE's position that a separate state was non-negotiable and was a step down from what the LTTE had been hinting at what they would seek as some of their spokesmen had been talking about a "confederal" arrangement.

In the formula agreed to yesterday the question of secession or a separate state of Tamil Eelam would not arise.

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