COLOMBO, 29 September 2003 — UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s scheduled visit to Sri Lanka next month was in doubt over government opposition to his meeting Tamil Tiger guerrillas in rebel-held territory, press reports here said yesterday.
The privately run Sunday Leader newspaper said Annan was reconsidering the three-day visit, scheduled to start on Oct. 10, while the Sunday Island said it could be postponed.
The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had asked Annan to visit the guerrilla-held Wanni region while in Sri Lanka, but the plan was opposed by the government, according to the reports by the two newspapers’ correspondents in New York.
The Sunday Leader said the government “objected to the secretary-general meeting the LTTE leadership in the Wanni since it could be interpreted as giving the rebel organization the status of a separate state.”
The Sunday Island said Colombo would be willing to let Annan meet LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran outside rebel-held territory.
The Tamil Tigers run a de facto state in the island’s north, with their own police force and collection of “taxes.”
The Tigers and the government entered a ceasefire in February 2002 and began Norwegian-brokered talks in September last year in a bid to end the conflict that has claimed more than 60,000 lives in three decades.
Peace talks have been on hold since April when the Tigers pulled out after accusing the government of failing to deliver on promises made at six rounds of talks. Both sides have said, however, they will still abide by the truce.
The top US policymaker for South Asia, Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca, visited the war-torn northern peninsula of Jaffna in March 2002 for talks with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in a show of support for his peace bid.
