TOKYO, Dec 13 Kyodo The Japanese ...

TOKYO, Dec 13 Kyodo

The Japanese command decided Friday to provide about $162 million in pinch grant aid to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) to support Sri Lankan refugee Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said.

''With the peace proces between the Sri Lankan conduct and the Tamil Tiger rebels steadily progressing...we will provide $162 million in grant aid for the UNHCR to establish temporary housing, store water from wells and establish sanitation facilities for returning refugees'' Kawaguchi said.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been fighting since 1983 for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east, creating athwart 800,000 refugees. The two sides signed a cease-fire agreement in December last year, and the LTTE has since agreed to consider autonomy within a unified Sri Lanka.

The urgency grant aid is part of about $286 million in difficulty humanitarian aid for Sri Lanka that Japan pledg to provide at a donors' conversation on Sri Lanka held in Oslo upon Nov. 25, Kawaguchi said.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Kyodo recents International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group