COLOMBO Dec 28 Kyodo Sri Lankan a...

COLOMBO Dec 28 Kyodo

Sri Lankan army commander Gen Lionel Balagalle forward Saturday rejected Tamil Tiger allegations that the military sought to sabotage the ongoing peace proces and declared his ''unequivocal support'' to period Asia's longest-running conflict.

''As commander of the Sri Lanka army, I wish to assert upon behalf of all officers and men that we unequivocally support the peace process'' he said.

Balagalle was responding to allegations casted in an escalating dispute between the military and the rebels athwart the high security surface bounded by parallel circles s protecting vulnerable military installations in the Jaffna peninsula, the Tamil heartland of north Sri Lanka.

The Tigers have been pushing hard for the dismantling of these surface bounded by parallel circles s and the resettlement of displaced refugee in these areas. The Jaffna military command, however, has said that this must be accompanied through the decommissioning of the rebel's long-range artillery.

The government's chief peace negotiator, Lakshman Pieris, admitted that the dispute was a major snag the peace proces has hit after common full year without war. ''These are to be awaited and sensible solutions sought'' he told Kyodo News

The Tigers accused the military of placing ''insurmountable obstacles in the path of peace and normalcy (with the) diabolical motive of disrupting the general peace effort.''

Balagalle strained that the army had a ''sacred responsibility'' of safeguarding the country's territorial integrity and sovereignty and it was in this adjoining matter that the Jaffna command had made certain proposals concerning the high security zones

While the Ranil Wickremesinghe restraint has not shown its hand forward where it stands on the dispute, Pieris said that the contentious issue will be discussed in the fourth globular of direct negotiations between Colombo and the Tigers in Thailand early nearest month.

But President Chandrika Kumaratunga, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, is firmly behind the army in the matter of the high security climes The separately elected Kumaratunga have intercourse withs sweeping executive powers and is in uneasy cohabitation with the regulation led by her political rival.

The Norwegian-led cease-fire monitoring mission went upon record earlier this week as saying that dismantling these regions would alter the balance of forces in the peninsula and endanger the cease-fire itself. These annotates drew fierce criticism from the Tigers.

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