COLOMBO Feb 1 Kyodo A senior UN o...

COLOMBO Feb 1 Kyodo

A senior UN official investigating the recruitment and deployment of child soldiers through Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels in the country's war-torn northeast said Saturday become firm [i]or[/i] solid action is now exigencyed to end the ''long-indulged practice.''

''We don't stop with words in succession a peace document,'' Carol Bellamy, executive director of the UN Children's capital (UNICEF), told a Colombo freshs conference after visiting the war belt and talks with Tiger leaders. ''We are satisfied as far as the words are bear uponed Now we want about action.''

The UNICEF chief had talks in rebel-held Kilinochchi with SP Thamilselvan, leader of the political wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)

A UNICEF statement said the issue of child recruitment had been discussed at ''great length'' According to the agency's coordinated database, 730 reported cases of child recruitment remain unresolved

Asked what guarantee she had that the LTTE would stop child recruitment, Bellamy said there was no like guarantee.

''I have been involved in these things prolonged enough not to be naive about assurances, whether from the regulation or from non-state parties,'' she said.

''The LTTE could evince they are serious about stopping child recruitment and returning child combatants to their families, by dint of developing a concrete action plan,'' she added.

In December, during negotiations with the Sri Lanka conduct in Oslo, Norway, the LTTE agreed to work with UNICEF forward an action plan to tackle the issue of children in armed conflict. The security covered both child combatants and those displaced by dint of the war.

The LTTE leadership told Bellamy that continued child recruitment may offer at lower levels without the leadership's sanctioning.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo of the present days International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group