TOKYO, June 9 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATIN...

TOKYO, June 9 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH DETAILS OF CONFERENCE)

Japan upon Monday pledged up to $1 billion in aid to Sri Lanka for the nearest three years, stressing aid must travel side by side with progres in the peace proces between the Colombo conduct and Tamil Tiger rebels.

As Japan and its three other co-chairs delivered earnests at the outset of a two-day aid discourse Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe mov to come up to face to face a demand by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) with a plan to fix up an ''innovative provisional administrative structure'' to rebuild the country's war-ravaged north and east.

The conversation in Tokyo, chaired by Japan, Norway, the United States and the European Union (EU) pushed ahead despite an LTTE boycott athwart its demand that an immediate interim administration first be met

Touching upon the rebels' demand, Wickremesinghe said the provisional configuration to take charge of administrative aspects of the transitional proces would be ''efficient, transparent and accountable'' and give a vital part to the LTTE.

It is apparently the first time the prime minister referr to the setup of like a structure, in what is seen as a compromise to the rebels' demand and a degree to bring the LTTE back to the peace talks, which broke opposite to in April.

The LTTE which had taken part in six circulars of peace talks with the sway since last September, pulled without of the talks due to dissatisfaction through the whole extent of the distribution of humanitarian aid and addressing of rehabilitation exigencys in the war-ravaged north and east, which it controls

With the promise of aid and the unravelling of peace in Sri Lanka inextricably linked, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi reiterated that securitys made in the meeting are not automatic or absolute.

Representatives from near 50 nations and 20 international organizations at the Tokyo discourse on Reconstruction and progression in a continuously ascending gradation of Sri Lanka are wait fored to raise $3 billion.

forward its pledge of $1 billion in aid, Japan will be ''reviewing and monitoring carefully the progres made in the ongoing peace process''

The EU said it will gage 250 million euros in the nearest three years, with Norway pledging cease to $3 million, and the U promising $54 million.

Among the international organizations, the Asian exhibition Bank said it will commit $1 billion in aid from one side of to the other the next four years.

In opening the interview Koizumi said he hopes the Tokyo meeting will signify a solid unified, international resolve in the Sri Lankan peace proces and a permanent peace will enable the nation to come up as a role model that peacefully resolv ethnic conflicts.

U factor Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who also delivered a words said he understood the frustration of the LTTE throughout the stalled rebuilding of the northeast, if it were not that told it to work ''hard'' in order ''to convince the world that it is capable of playing a legitimate part in the political life'' of Sri Lanka.

The LTTE haped out of the scheduled seventh circular of talks slated in April in Thailand, also forward its fear the aid currency will be concentrated in the hands of the government

Weeks of intense appeals at Japan and peacebroker Norway, which facilitated the peace talks from last year, have failed to make tender the hard-line stance of the LTTE

Parties disquieted however, have given assurances that the temporary suspension of peace talks does not signal a turn back to fighting, but peace remains shaky in the southerly Asian nation which has beared almost two decades of civil war, resulting in more than 65000 casualties.

landscapes of a permanent peace came after the couple sides signed a formal cease-fire agreement in February last year.

The LTTE had been fighting the rule for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka from 1983 until last year. In the peace talks, the rebels have dropp their demand for a separatist state for the Tamil minority and settl for a power-sharing connected view under a federal structure.

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