Tigers to unveil power-sharing plan by end of month

Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (L) shakes hands with his Indian counterpart Atal Behari Vajpayee prior to a meeting in New Delhi yesterday. Wickremesinghe began a series of meetings with India's political leadership during the first day of an official visit aimed at boosting defence and economic ties. PHOTO: AFP

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said over their Voice of Tigers radio that they will present a proposal for the setting up of an interim administration for embattled northeast on October 31.

A special announcement over the radio, monitored in the town of Vavuniya, 256 kilometres (160 miles) north of here, said the proposals will be given to peace broker Norway to be handed over to the Colombo government.

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Diplomatic sources said the rebel document would be an important landmark in attempts to politically end the island's drawn out ethnic bloodshed as it will be the first time Tigers would put down their position in writing.

"It has been a case of Colombo or Oslo making proposals and the Tigers saying 'yes' or 'no' rather than committing themselves to a position of their own," a Western diplomat said. "But, now it is changing."

The Tigers have been travelling in Europe meeting with their legal and constitutional experts to prepare a set of counter proposals to Colombo's July 17 offer of a Tiger-dominated interim administration for embattled areas.

A Tiger delegation returned home Saturday after the latest round of talks in Ireland.

"We paid attention to the conflict resolution process in various parts of world with special emphasis on the interim arrangements that were put in place prior to a final resolution of the conflict," an LTTE spokesman Saturday quoted political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan as saying.

The Tigers pulled out of peace talks after the sixth round in March, saying the government was failing to fulfil its promises.

They made the setting up of an interim administration in the island's northeast a pre-condition to resume negotiations.