No progress on Humanitarian issues, CFA- Thamilchelvan

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 October 2006, 18:07 GMT]
First day of talks in Geneva between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers, focusing on the urgent humanitarian issues and the re-opening of A9 concluded without the parties agreeing to any measures to relieve the humanitarian crisis in the Tamil homeland, Liberation Tigers Political Head S.P Thamilchelvan told TamilNet.

"We took up the humanitarian crisis in Jaffna as the urgent priority issue. Due to the economic blockade imposed by the Sri Lankan government, Tamil people are deprived of basic livelihood, humanitarian supplies are blocked, and the entire population in Jaffna has been denied freedom of movement. But, the Sri Lankan government was not prepared to relieve the population from the unfolding humanitarian catastrophy," Mr. Thamilchelvan said.

The GoSL team showed no flexibility in alleviating the hardships and maintained that sufficient food, medical supplies can be transported by the sea route and refused to consider the opening of A9, Thamilchelvan said.

"Secondly, we sought Colombo's stand on its commitment to the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA). We maintained that access to demarcated forward defence lines (FDLs) by the members of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) was critical to bring normalcy. Sadly, there was no expression of cooperation from the Sri Lankan side," Thamilchelvan said.

The discussions on the re-opening of A9 and other humanitarian issues affecting the people of Northeast will again be taken up for discussions by the LTTE delegation on Sunday, he said.



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