Tigers will negotiate if A9 opens: TNA



The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) said yesterday it could prevail upon the LTTE to return to the negotiation table in the event of a positive announcement by the Government to resume the peace process.

TNA Jaffna district MP N. Srikantha told the Daily Mirror yesterday that it was all the more welcome if the announcement is accompanied by the re-opening on the A9 road as a gesture of goodwill.

Mr. Srikantha said that it could thus spare the people in the North of hardships and sufferings now being experienced by them.

In such an event, we are confident that the LTTE will be bound to respond positively to such a move. The TNA is willing to play its due role in this regard, he said.

Commenting on the Government`s move to implement the 13th Amendment in full, he said that the TNA had no quarrel over the decision of the Government in this regard, and said this provision had been there in the Constitution for the last 20 years.

It was brought in when the Northern and Eastern Provinces were merged by a Presidential proclamation by President J.R. Jayewardene under the emergency regulations. What is significant was that the Government has now decided to implement the 13th Amendment while the two provinces had been de-merged by a judgment of the Supreme Court, he said.

He said that the Supreme Court, in the judgment, while declaring the legal procedure adopted to merge the two provinces was null and void, indicated that if the Government desired the merger it could be re-effected in accordance with the Constitution.

The Government, while being not at all concerned about this issue, seems to be serious about implementing the 13th Amendment in full, and now the UNP had pledged its support to this move. As far as Tamil people are concerned, the urgent need is to stop the ongoing war and resume peace negotiations between the Government and the LTTE to find a permanent and viable solution to the ethnic conflict, he said.

He said that any interim arrangement is not going to help, and while the country is engulfed in an atmosphere of violence, the immediate task would be to halt hostile activities on the part of both parties to the military conflict.