The Hindu : Solheim to brief India on peace talks

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 19, 2002

International

International

Solheim to brief India on peace talks

By V.S. Sambandan

SATTAHIP (Thailand) Sept. 18. The Special Envoy for Sri Lanka's peace process, Erik Gudbrand Solheim, was a picture of contentment at the end of the Sattahip talks.

Speaking to The Hindu after the talks concluded today, Mr. Solheim, who will be leaving for India to brief New Delhi, said both parties to the Sri Lankan conflict — Colombo and the LTTE — had requested that India be kept informed.

The Indian counsel to him, at the start of the process, was that he should ``not be disappointed by small setbacks.''

Recognising the importance of the India factor he said, ``everyone who takes a slightest look at the map, will realise that India is the only neighbour to Sri Lanka.''

The most important need now, Mr. Solheim said, was international financial assistance for de-mining and resettlement. ``You cannot expect (the internally displaced) to go back if there is no land, no house. They are looking for all sort of funding''.

Mr. Solheim, a Norwegian MP from the Socialist Party, said Norway's involvement in the island's peace process was because no country was isolated from another, though far away, in the current global context.

``Take it from this perspective. I myself have 3 kids. If I want a safer world for them, that cannot be Norway in isolation. Two hundred years back it could be Norway in isolation. Now the world is global. The threats to people are all global. If you allow a lot regional local wars to continue that will also ultimately affect the lives of people far away. The old notion of the world is not there anymore, in that sense it will also benefit the future of Europe''.

On the trying moments he had been through, Mr. Solheim said, ``patience has been needed all the time''.

He saw the ceasefire as ``the single-most important step'' because it ``gave breathing space' and was ``transforming'' Sri Lanka.

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