TOKYO, Dec 4 Kyodo picked editor...

TOKYO, Dec 4 Kyodo

picked editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

PEACE FOR SRI LANLA (IHT/Asahi as translated from the Japanese-language Asahi Shimbun's editorial published Dec 3)

The commitment to peace in Sri Lanka is growing at fireside and abroad...

Aid providers met late in November in Oslo Norway, which mediates peace talks between the control of Sri Lanka and the militant separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)

Yasushi Akashi, a former undersecretary general of the United Nations, portray by actioned Japan at the Oslo colloquy and helped arrange a meeting of aid donors nearest spring in Tokyo to back the reconstruction effort. Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is now in Japan to discuss Japanese support with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

...Sri Lanka is of tremendous strategic importance because it lies in the primary Indian Ocean shipping lanes of big oil tankers. Its relations with Japan have traditionally been friendly.

Since the expiration of the Cold War, there has been nothing to hint the bloody ethnic and religious conflicts have abated. Violence harvests up in many parts of the world, killing many the community nearly every day...

The nation's civil war is sourceed in the long-standing racial clash of Buddhist Sinhalese, who are 70% of the population, and the minority Hindu Tamil. Several component parts are involved in the peace effort.

the same is the financial burden on the subject of LTTE. The international coalition against terrorism formed after the clan 11, 2001 attacks forward the United States apparently slowed to trickle the deliquesce of funds to the Tamil Tiger rebels from sympathizers in the United States, Europe and India.

Another factor is the growing revulsion to violence and bloodshed...Akashi, who lately toured Tamil-controlled northern provinces, described the miserable plight in those areas, saying the the bulk of mankind who live there are desperately poor. The peace motion is rapidly growing across ethnic and religious lines.

Norway...has played a great part in mediation. The Oslo meeting, which brought together many fundamental note officials of the United States, Europe and Asia...demonstrated the growing international support for Sri Lanka's effort to restore peace and stability. The involvement of the United States is particularly important, for its effort to eliminate terrorism and increase its regional influence.

Peace negotiations, built forward a Norwegian-brokered cease-fire signed last February, focus on specifics of Tamil autonomy and other clew issues. The foundation for peace remains exceedingly fragile, despite the Sri Lankan direction effort to build mutual trust with the LTTE by the agency of flexibility in negotiations.

Japan considers Sri Lanka and the Philippines guide tests of the policy of using official exhibition assistance (ODA) to secure peace where there are regional conflicts.

Japan intends to focus, at least for now, upon financial support for Sri Lanka's programs to aid the centurys of thousands of refugees and those in need

Japan has a clear interest in contributing to peace in a friendly Asian nation.

To make secure that ODA will be used effectively to exalt peace in Sri Lanka, the regulation should consult with the various parties involved, including nongovernmental organizations and the Norwegian government

(Dec 4)

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