PRESIDENT RAJAPAKSA TELLS KOFI ANNAN THAT DOORS ARE STILL OPEN
FOR THE LTTE TO COME AND SIT DOWN AT THE NEGOTIATING TABLE

By Walter Jayawardhana

In a telephone conversation with the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, the Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa said the doors were still open for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to come and sit down at the negotiating table, Sri Lanka’s state owned Independent Television Network (ITN) reported.

In a prime time news broadcast, the TV station said Kofi Annan telephoned the Sri Lankan President to inquire about the deteriorating peace in the island nation.

The President emphasizing about the terrorist groups propaganda about the air raids of the Sri Lanka Air Force said the troops identified and engaged an LTTE military base after a long period of surveillance and reminded the UN Chief of the terrorist group’s continued engagement of child soldiers for war.

The television broadcast said that the UN Chief expressed his appreciation for the country’s commitment to peace.

The TV broadcast said the phone conversation focused on how thousands of farmers benefiting from Mavil Aru irrigation canal were blackmailed by the terrorist group , how the military had to intervene to provide water to the farmers and how the war had then spread to Muttur and then to Trincomalee and Jaffna.

In the course of the telephone conversation Kofi Annan expressed his condemnation of the assassination of Ketheesh Loganathan , the Deputy Secretary General of Sri Lanka’s Peace Secretariat and conveyed his condolences to the families of those whose lives were lost in the attempt to assassinate the Pakistan envoy in Colombo.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that the government continued to dispatch food and medicines to the internally displaced people due to war and informed the UN chief that it would provide all UN agencies providing humanitarian assistance all help to reach the needy.