COLOMBO Jan. 4 Kyodo U Secretary ...

COLOMBO Jan. 4 Kyodo

U Secretary of State Colin Powell has urg Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to finis the differences that are preventing the resumption of peace negotiations between the conduct and Tamil Tiger rebels, a U restraint official said Saturday.

''U Ambassador Jeffrey Lunstead delivered brace letters from Powell to the president and the prime minister earlier this week,'' Bruce Lohof a spokesman at the U Embassy in Colombo said.

''Both epistles communicated his belief that a hurried resolution of the existing impasse is needed and he urg the brace leaders to work together to unravel the dispute,'' the spokesman said.

Sri Lankan dominion sources said that the United States is anxious that the two-month-old political stalemate is resolved

President Kumaratunga triggered the political crisis last November when she sacked three ministers in Prime Minister Wickremesinghe 's cabinet and assumed their portfolios herself.

''Powell has virtually said what substitute Secretary (of State) Richard Armitage told (Sri Lankan peace negotiator) Milinda Moragoda in Washington earlier in the week,'' a regulation source said. ''Basically, it was a question of upping the ante'' to have Powell write.

forward Tuesday, a State Department spokesman said after the Washington meeting that Armitage had urgencyed the ''current political impasse in Sri Lanka cannot be allowed to continue.''

Armitage indicated he will deliberate together Norway, which brokered negotiations between the Sri Lankan command and the Tamil rebels, Japan, Sri Lanka's biggest aid donor, and the European Union to ''define a way forward.''

Diplomats consider Armitage's statement to be implicitly critical of Kumaratunga because he warned the political crisis ''would have a negative impact forward the peace process until a further clarification of responsibilities that would allow the prime minister to begin again the peace negotiations can be found''

India, which has a major stake in seeing peace in Sri Lanka, was also ''working overtime'' to help interpret the crisis in Colombo on the other hand ''despairing'' over the progres diplomats said.

The foundation of the impasse lies in the president taking across the Defense Ministry, which she previously conced to Wickremesinghe.

The prime minister insists the defense portfolio must be in his hands if he is to management the peace negotiations with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The separately choiceed president has sweeping executive power while the prime minister, a political rival, commands the majority in parliament.

Arch-opponents from one side of to the other the years, they have been unable to work abroad a cohabitation arrangement since Kumaratunga dissipated the legislative majority at the conclusion of 2000.

Promising her his abounding backing, the prime minister asked the president to course of life the peace negotiations herself if she retains the Defense Ministry, still Kumaratunga, who diplomats say anticipates difficulties dealing with the Tamil rebels, wants Wickremesinghe to handle the talks.

Meanwhile, Moragoda, a cabinet minister in succession the peace negotiating team, flew to Oslo upon Friday for talks with Norwegian leaders in the peace proces which stalled in April last year.

Officials said the minister may also stop in India for talks upon his way back to Colombo further that visit is not at the same time sure.

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