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by Ranga Jayasuriya

The Sub Committee on De-escalation and Normalisation will meet on Saturday to work out measures to normalise lives in the North- East on recommendations by district committees.

"The Sub Committee will review recommendations of the district committees and take decisions," Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) spokesman Teitur Torkelsson told the Daily News.

The Government and the LTTE in the second round of talks in Thailand agreed on three sub committees on de-escalation and normalisation; rehabilitation; and political affairs to address core issues in the ethnic conflict.

Defence Secretary Austin Fernando and LTTE Batticaloa military chief Karuna are the co-chairpersons of the sub committee.

"There is a quite a lot of recommendations agreed by both parties," Torkelsson said. "It is up to both parties to implement them and it is up to the SLMM to monitor the implementation".

Among the recommendations are measures to normalise lives of Muslims in the East, vacation of public buildings occupied by security forces, re-drawing the boundaries of certain high security zones, opening high security zones for occupation, opening of roads and communications and working relations between the STF and the LTTE.

"Some have already been implemented in Batticaloa where there is an exceptionally good relationship between the security forces commander and the LTTE military commander," Torkelsson said.

He said most district meetings had "right people" although LTTE Trincomalee military leader Paduman was absent in the Trincomalee district meeting.

The Sub Committee held district meetings in Jaffna, Batticaloa, Vavuniya, Ampara and Trincomalee where issues of regional importance were discussed.

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