Priority to Tamils issue sought in PA-UNP deal

By Nirupama Subramanian

COLOMBO, AUG. 27. As the minority People's Alliance (PA) Government attempts to strike a deal with the opposition United National Party (UNP) in order to avoid a showdown in Parliament, Sri Lanka's main Tamil party said today that the ethnic conflict should be the top priority in any PA-UNP agreement to share power.

``The Tamil national question should be given the priority on the agenda agreed upon by the two major parties. Any other approach will only be self-serving and will not serve the interests of the country,'' the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) said today.

A statement by the TULF general secretary, Mr. R. Sampanthan, said the first priority was to reopen the Norway-facilitated peace process and that the two parties should take immediate steps to begin talks with the LTTE.

The PA and the UNP met again today in a second session of talks in what is being seen as a last-ditch attempt by the Government to avoid facing a no-confidence motion.

The meeting lasted four hours. A joint statement by the two sides after the meeting said only that both had agreed to conclude discussions on Tuesday.

The TULF pointed out that these reforms, ``however justifiable, will not address the Tamil national question, and the right of the Tamil people to an equal status in the country''.

The party is aligned with the UNP in the battle to topple the Government but is jittery that if the two big parties strike a deal, the minorities would become politically dispensable, and that the resolution of the ethnic conflict would be put on the backburner.

The TULF statement comes on the heels of similar concern expressed by a grouping of intellectuals known as the Peace Support Group (PSG). Welcoming the dialogue between the PA and the UNP, the PSG said in a statement it was concerned to note that the UNP agenda made no mention of the ethnic conflict. But there was still an adequate basis for discussions between the PA's stated priorities and the UNPs proposals to address the national crisis, the PSG said.

The leader of the UNP, Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, today met the Speaker, Mr. Anura Bandaranaike, to seek an assurance that he would not allow Parliament to be prorogued once again by the President, Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga.

If the PA fails to strike a deal with the UNP on power-sharing, it is feared that Ms. Kumaratunga, who prorogued Parliament in July to avoid the no-confidence motion, may resort to the same tactic again when it reconvenes on September 7.

The Speaker, who has just returned from a holiday abroad, is believed to have given Mr. Wickremesinghe an assurance that he would not allow it to happen, though it is not clear what he can do in case Ms. Kumaratunga does decide to prorogue the House again.

Kadirgamar denies

In a separate development, the Foreign Minister, Mr. Lakshman Kadirgamar, denied speculation in the local media that the US had played a crucial role in the PA-UNP talks.

A statement last week from the US Embassy which said that the Ambassador, Mr. Ashley Wills, had carried a message from ``one political party to another'' had only heightened the speculation.

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