by Shamindra Ferdinando
President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday decided to explore the possibility of providing adequate security to vulnerable Tamil groups disarmed under the Oslo-brokered cease-fire agreement in February last year, political sources said.

The president underscored the urgent need to have an adequate security mechanism in place to counter the ongoing wave of political assassinations, the sources said. In this context, the president is of the view that the government has no option but to meet the reasonable request of the Tamil groups, the sources said. The recent killing of 46-year-old Kandiah Subathiran (Robert), considered the de-facto leader of the EPRLF’s Varathar faction in the absence of Varatharajah Perumal has forced the government to review security of rival political groups and TULF leader V. Anandasangaree, under pressure to quit the party leadership.

The Tigers and the TULF-led Tamil National Alliance (TNA) will oppose any move to issue weapons to these groups, Tamil political sources said. The Scandinavian monitors too will oppose a decision to re-arm them as it would be in violation of the cease-fire agreement, the sources said.

The president pressed on with her case for protection for the EPDP, the PLOTE and the EPRLF (Varathar faction) as the Tigers rejected Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe’s latest call to resume peace talks in his televised address to the nation last Thursday. The Tigers vowed on Friday that they wouldn’t return to the negotiating table unless the government offered them a practical conceptual framework for an interim administrative structure. The premier reiterated his commitment to establish a structure that would protect the rights of all communities, but the Tigers dismissed the latest overtures calling for a radical overhaul of the peace process with a re-defined agenda. Presidential advisor Lakshman Kadirgamar was present throughout the meeting, the first since Kumaratunga refused to meet with the premier just before the Tokyo Donor Conference early this month. The Friday meeting at Janadhipathi Mandiraya lasted for over two hours, the sources said, adding that the entire gamut of issues relating to the peace process, national security and what the president described as fast deteriorating law and order in the context of the recent assassinations in the north-east and the south".

During the talks, the premier indicated to the president some of his proposals on the proposed interim administrative structure aimed at breaking the deadlock, the sources said. Wickremesinghe admitted that they were in the process of finalising the proposals, the sources said. The premier is likely to seek the president’s views on the proposals that would be forwarded to the Tigers through the Norwegians in about a week’s time.