Sri Lanka Friday reiterated its commitment to a negotiated political settlement despite pulling out of a near six-year-old Norwegian-backed truce with Tamil rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), according to dpa. Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said in a statement that the government was looking forward to the support of the international community as Sri Lanka worked towards securing sustainable peace. The minister said that the termination of the ceasefire agreement signed in February 2002 "does not in anyway hamper the process of moving towards a negotiated political settlement". He added: "In fact, it gives us broader space to pursue this goal in a manner that involves all sections of the Sri Lankan polity, which remained sidelined due to the CFA, an agreement solely between the government and the LTTE." The government on Thursday conveyed to the Norwegian government its decision to terminate the agreement with effect from January 16, meaning the Scandinavians monitoring the truce would pull out by then. The truce has been ineffective during the past two years after rebels renewed attacks on government forces and troops in return stepped up military operations mainly in the north and eastern provinces. Bogollagama declared that rebels, despite the truce, had been carrying out a series of assassinations, attacks and recruitment of child soldiers. Tamil rebels had yet to react Friday, but the European Union expressed dismay, and called on the Sri Lankan government to return to negotiations. "I am deeply disappointed by the Sri Lankan government's decision to abrogate the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement. This decisions risks complicating the already difficult situation in the country," EU External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said. "I hope that the Sri Lankan government will come forward with a substantive devolution offer around which negotiations can start as soon as possible... For an arrangement to be credible to minorities and to serve as a feasible base for negotiations, it needs to go beyond past offers that failed," her statement said. The truce agreement had been signed between former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who is currently the opposition leader and the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. The truce was observed during Wickremesinghe's regime which lasted only still February 2004, and there had since been serious violations. But rebels stepped up their attacks in December 2005 after incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected to power.
