Agence France Presse

Colombo, March 25:

Sri Lanka’s foreign minister ruled out an early resumption of peace talks to end a three-decade conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels but said a deal on disbursing tsunami relief was possible. “A formal resumption of the peace process is very much on the backburner,” foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar told a meeting of the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of Sri Lanka yesterday. Kadirgamar’s comments come as the coalition government led by president Chandrika Kumaratunga faces pressure from its Marxist coalition partner, the JVP or People’s Liberation Front, which is opposed to any kind of involvement of the Tigers in relief operations.

Kadirgamar said talks with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) following the December 26 tsunamis were now focused on tsunami relief rather than reviving peace talks stalled since April 2003. Both sides had broadly agreed to establish a federal state in Sri Lanka to resolve the long-running separatist conflict which had claimed over 60,000 lives between 1972 and 2002. Despite the suspension of talks in April 2003, the two parties are abiding by a ceasefire that went into effect from February 23, 2002.