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Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Chamitha Kuruppu
President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday discussed matters regarding participation at the Parliamentary Select Committee on Ethnic Reconciliation.
The Opposition Leader met President Rajapaksa last morning on an invitation by the President to discuss participation at the PSE on Ethnic Reconciliation, Presidential Spokesman Bandula Jayasekera said.
Rajapaksa had invited the main opposition United National Party to participate at the PSC where Wickremesinghe had said that it was pointless having the PSE without the TNA’s participation.Wickremesinghe had asked the Government to create a situation where the TNA could also participate at the PSE. The Opposition Leader had also asked President to implement the recommendations of the LLRC, which both the Government and Opposition agreed to implement, creating an environment for the TNA to participate at the PSE.
Wickremesinghe also asked the Government to prepare an agenda for the PSE based on the Government-TNA talks, to which the President had said that the talks were between the SLFP and TNA and not the Government and the TNA.
Ministers Maithripala Sirisena, Nimal Siripala de Silva, Susil Premajayantha, Dulles Alahapperuma, Basil Rajapaksa and UNP Parliamentarians Joseph Michael Perera, Tissa Attanayake, John Amaratunga, Ravi Karunanayake and Lakshman Kiriella were also present at the occasion.
Meanwhile Press Trust of India quoting unnamed sources said that outlining his reasons to convene the PSC, the President told the UNP that the bilateral talks took place between the TNA, the main Tamil party and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the dominant party in the ruling UPFA alliance, and not between the government and the TNA.
Therefore the talks need to be expanded to include all political parties.
The UNP sources said that president invited them to take part in the PSC and the UNP assured that opposition could take part in the PSC process if the government was able to take meaningful steps to create conditions conducive for its participation.
Ever since the idea for a PSC was mooted doubts always lingered about the opposition’s participation.
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) maintains that agreement from their bilateral talks with the government should be the basis for setting up the PSC agenda.
The SLFP-TNA talks remain stalled since January of this year. The talks achieved only limited progress since they began in January of 2011.
However Rajapaksa is averse to formulating a solution based solely on government’s talks with the main Tamil party.
The Sri Lankan president contends that any solution formulated only with limited consultations may not achieve wider acceptance.
The TNA on the other hands points to various instances of stalled reconciliation talks at different times.
In a related development, the external affairs minister G L Peiris departed yesterday on a four day visit to Washington.
He will meet US secretary of state Hilary Clinton on May 18.
Sri Lanka is expected to apprise the US government on the steps taken by it to implement the recommendations of the LLRC
