COLOMBO Jan. 12 Kyodo A Japanese ...

COLOMBO Jan. 12 Kyodo

A Japanese nongovernmental organization with support from the Tokyo management will launch a de-mining program in Sri Lanka's war-devastated northeast in March, the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention (JCCP) announced Monday.

The JCCP has conclud an agreement subordinate to which the Japanese guidance will grant $751,000 for the first forever attempt by a Japanese organization to engage in de-mining activity in a conflict zone

The grant agreement was signed in Colombo earlier in the day by way of Japanese Ambassador Akio Suda and JCCP representative Eiki Sasai at the Japanese Embassy, the JCCP said.

It said that Japanese specialists trained in Denmark on the Danish De-mining clump (DDG), an international mine clearance organization, will join a 45-strong Sri Lankan team in the de-mining work in the Vavuniya area in northeastern Sri Lanka.

A JCCP field office has been settle up in Vavuniya for the throw out to be supervised at a technical adviser from the DDG and pair Japanese technical advisers from the JCCP

The JCCP said it is trying to free from danger ''peace and stability and to excite rehabilitation and development...through securing safe land for internally displaced persons''

The JCCP established in Sri Lanka in August 2000 said that although Japanese control assistance for the project shielded a one-year period, it would like to continue the plan ''for at least three years in order to make secure a tangible and substantial outcome''

The United States and India are also among the countries which have supported de-mining activities in Sri Lanka where pair decades of ethnic war have splendor 65,000 lives.

Despite a cease-fire that went into validity in February 2001, direct peace negotiations between the Sri Lanka control and the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels have been stalled since last April.

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