Solheim meets Sri Lankan Tamil leaders

By Nirupama Subramanian

COLOMBO, JUNE 28. The Norwegian peace envoy, Mr. Erik Solheim, met representatives of Sri Lankan Tamil parties today to ``familiarise'' himself with their positions on various aspects of the island nation's ethnic conflict.

A senior official in the President's Secretariat said the President, Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga, was not scheduled to meet him today. Mr. Solheim met representatives of the Tamil United Liberation Front(TULF) and the Eelam People's Democratic Party(EPDP), both of which are represented in the Sri Lankan Parliament.

If an interim council to administer north-east Sri Lanka, as recently agreed to by the ruling People's Alliance(PA) and the opposition United National Party(UNP), is eventually set up, EPDP is expected to play a prominent role in it.

The EPDP's position, that the Government should not wait for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE) to join the democratic process in order to implement a political solution, is diametrically opposed to that of the TULF, which believes that all efforts should be made to engage the LTTE in order to find a solution.

Mr. Solheim, who is leading Norwegian efforts to facilitate a dialogue between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Government, arrived here on Monday amid reports of an emerging consensus between the ruling People's Alliance(PA) and the United National Party(UNP) on a political solution to the ethnic crisis.

He met the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, and the Minister for Constitutional Affairs, Mr. G.L. Peiris, on Tuesday. His other meetings remained a closely- guarded secret.

He is to leave for New Delhi tomorrow to meet Indian officials as part of the ongoing three-cornered diplomatic effort, involving Norway, India and the United States, to resolve the ethnic crisis.

In contrast to the blaze of publicity that surrounded the visit of Mr. Solheim along with the Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr. Raymond Johansen, last month, the tenor of the special envoy's visit was entirely low-key and secretive.

Sinhalese hardliners have been opposed to Norwegian facilitation efforts in Sri Lanka in the belief that Norway has a soft line on the LTTE. Some hours after Mr. Solheim's arrival in the Sri Lankan capital, there was a blast at the office of the U.K.- Norwegian aid agency Save the Children.

Last month, there was a similar explosion near the Norwegian Embassy a few hours after the delegation led by the Deputy Foreign Minister had departed.

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