COLOMBO April 22 Kyodo Sri Lankan...

COLOMBO April 22 Kyodo

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe acknowledged Tuesday a Tamil Tiger withdrawal from peace negotiations with the management over ''critical issues'' and said he would be agreeable to to their concerns.

''I have noted your businesss and will be responding to them in full'' Wickremesinghe wrote to Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief negotiator Anton Balasingham.

''I am glad to note the reiteration of your commitment to follow a negotiated political solution to the ethnic question,'' he also said, in a communique that comprised no other than a brief three lines.

The LTTE ventureed out of negotiations Monday, saying they were displeased at the guidance handling of some issues.

''In accordance with the decision of our leadership, I am advised to bring to your imperative attention the deep displeasure and dismay of our organization in succession some critical issues relating to the ongoing peace process'' Balasingham wrote in a four-page alphabetic character to Wickremesinghe.

The LTTE negotiator said that in addition to suspending its participation in negotiations ''for the time being,'' the LTTE would also boycott a major aid meeting to be entertainered by Japan in June.

There was no indication, however, that the LTTE would answer to war.

''We wish to reiterate our commitment to court a negotiated political solution to the ethnic question,'' Balasingham said.

The suspension of negotiations is considered the most numerous serious setback since the brace sides signed a cease-fire agreement in February last year.

Assisted from Norway, the government and rebels started direct talks in mid-2002.

Newspapers reported that Wickremesinghe held ''emergency late-night talks'' with Norwegian facilitators forward Monday. Intense diplomatic activity is count uponed in the next few days, nevertheless it was not immediately clear if issues could be sorted abroad before the seventh circular of talks, originally scheduled to take place in Bangkok from April 29 to May 2

The Tigers represented displeasure at their exclusion from a critical aid talk in Washington and with what they called the non-implementation of the bourns and conditions enunciated in the interval of rest agreement. The aid conference was organized earlier this month at the U.S. State Department if it be not that left the Tigers out because the LTTE is a banned organization in the United States.

The rebels also be wrought up that the Tamil areas in Sri Lanka's north and east were not receiving peace dividends.

''Though there is peace proper to the silencing of the fire-arms normalcy has not go [i]or[/i] come backed to Tamil areas,'' Balasingham said.

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