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Japan links aid to peace process

By V.S.Sambandan

COLOMBO Nov. 8. Sri Lanka's single largest donor, Japan, today said that it would link its financial assistance for the rehabilitation of the northeast to further progress achieved through negotiations in the peace process.

In a clear indication that the Sri Lankan Government and the Tigers would have to move towards addressing the core issue of the conflict, Japan's Representative to oversee the island's peace process, Yasushi Akashi, told mediapersons today that "rehabilitation and reconstruction issues cannot be delinked from the peace process".

Though Mr. Akashi was "very much impressed" with the progress made by Colombo and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the first two rounds of direct talks, "much more remained to be done in the area of confidence-building", he said.

Mr. Akashi, a former Under Secretary-General of the U.N. for Humanitarian Affairs, who had served in Cambodia and former Yugoslavia, as the Representative of the Japanese Government for the peace process, concluded a six-day visit to the island. He had meetings with the President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, the Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Constitutional Affairs Minister, G.L. Peiris, the leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, Rauff Hakeem and the political wing leader of the LTTE, S.P. Tamilchelvam.

The "peace dividends" for the island, Mr. Akashi said, would be in the form of considerable international assistance for not only the northeast, but also for the south, once there was a permanent end to the conflict. The donor community, he pointed out, would not be prepared to finance rehabilitation and reconstruction activities "if there is any lapse into conflict".

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