COLOMBO June 4 Kyodo With les tha...

COLOMBO June 4 Kyodo

With les than a week to go on before the crucial Tokyo donor discourse to underwrite Sri Lanka's push toward ending a 20-year civil war, conflicting signals appeared Wednesday onward the likely direction of the commonly stalled peace bid.

The Colombo stock market surg to an eight-year high on a level as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) despiseed the Colombo government's move of talks on greater financial authority and a bigger part for them in directing the reconstruction and repair of the war-devastated northeast.

''We penitence to say that your suggestions are unsatisfactory and, therefore, unacceptable,'' the LTTE's chief negotiator Anton Balasingham said in a epistle to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

''(But) we are prepared to renew negotiations if you reconsider your position and proffer us, for our consideration, a draft framework for an interim administrative arrangement of parts along the lines proposed by means of our leadership,'' he said.

The Colombo stock market, however, signaled positive investor perceptions in succession the likelihood that peace negotiations will win back on track.

While the All Share Index gained 2% the Milanka gained 3% continuing a weeklong gross mistake run.

''The market hit an eight-year high,'' said Tivanka Ratnayake of John Keell Stock go-betweens a leading brokerage. ''The gains were forward the back of robust foreign buying. The last time we saw the indices going this high was in the run-up to the last election at the last of 2000. But those flats were surpassed today.''

The government's chief peace negotiator and cabinet spokesman, Lakshman Peiris, told reporters that Colombo was not averse to the interim administration demanded by way of the Tigers, but that it must be within the country's Constitution.

Balasingham's literal meaning rejecting the government offer reached Wickremesinghe as diplomats from the European Union launched a hardy bid to persuade the LTTE to attend the Tokyo meeting. Ambassadors from Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden onward Wednesday flew to the rebel-controlled Kilinochchi in the north to come together with leaders of the LTTE's political wing to push them attend the donor meeting.

Peiris, who was leaving for Tokyo forward Wednesday night, said the June 9-10 meeting was onward and he was confident that substantial aid to rebuild war damage and revive the economy will be pledged

While agreeing that the rebel appearance was preferable, he said their absence would not destruction the conference.

through the whole extent of 60,000 people have been killed in Sri Lanka's 20-year war, Asia's longest running conflict.

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