Sri Lankan PM for Pak.

By Nirupama Subramanian

COLOMBO, MARCH 10. The Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mr. Ratnasiri Wickramanayake, will leave for Islamabad on Sunday to confer with the Pakistani Chief Executive, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in yet another effort to rescue the Bamiyan Buddhas from destruction by the Taliban.

``The Prime Minister is leaving tomorrow morning for Pakistan for a private meeting with Gen. Musharraf about how to save the statues,'' said his co-ordinating secretary, Mr. Seelarathne Senarath.

Mr. Wickramanayake had no plans to meet or contact anyone in the Taliban. Reports said the Taliban Foreign Minister, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, would also be in Islamabad on Sunday for a meeting with the U.N. Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan.

The Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Mr. Lakshman Kadirgamar, who is already in the Pakistani capital, met Gen. Musharraf on Friday and besides holding discussions with him on the upcoming SAARC foreign secretaries meeting, expressed his government's concern over the Taliban decision. He also met the Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Abdus Sattar, a release from the Pakistan Foreign Ministry said here today.

Last week, the President, Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga, wrote to the U.N. Secretary-General, offering to share expenses in the event of an international operation to move the statues.

Mrs. Kumaratunga, who is scheduled to make a three-nation tour of Europe next week, will spend four days in Germany where Sri Lanka is co-sponsoring a resolution to be introduced in the General Assembly urging the Taliban to stop the destruction of the statues and other stone relics.

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