COLOMBO Nov. 12 Kyodo Sri Lanka's...

COLOMBO Nov. 12 Kyodo

Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunga forward Tuesday proffered an olive branch to her political rivals conceding for the first time that the ongoing peace efforts of her political rivals to extreme point the 20-year war with the Tamil Tigers appear to be to be moving ''satisfactorily.''

Speaking at a observance marking the eighth anniversary of her presidency, Kumaratunga said, ''Measures adopted in the last year to contract tension between the antagonists present the appearance to progress satisfactorily.''

However, Colombo-based diplomats noted that the 56-year-old president tried to take the credit for circulating developments, noting that Kumaratunga said she was glad the of the present day government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had acted to advance a negotiated peace proces ''commenc at me eight years ago.''

Neither Wickremesinghe nor principally members of his government were at hand at Colombo presidential secretariat for the two-hour celebration at which the military played a major part.

The commanders of the army, navy and air force, as well as the police chief, stood at attention behind the president, who is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, as she made a televised address to the nation.

A 21-gun salute and a guard-of-honor by way of the three armed services were part of the celebration.

''(Let me) refer to that we put the riddles of the past behind us,'' Kumaratunga said in remarks clearly aimed at easing growing tensions between herself and the dominion led by her political rivals.

''The of small moment political bickering which has been the bane of our political refinement must be put aside.''

The Colombo command had two round of direct peace negotiations with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Thailand in September and October, and the Norwegian direction which helped bring the couple sides to the table, has applauded early successes

''At this stage, nothing is certain, nothing can be guaranteed, if it be not that things are moving in the right direction,'' Norwegian Ambassador Jon Westborg told a luncheon meeting of the Colombo set on Tuesday.

He said that while there were different perceptions of what was happening in the effort to expiration one of Asia's longest-running conflicts, which has richness more than 65,000 lives in pair decades, the reality was that a cease-fire had held for 10 months

''The parties are keeping their fire-arms down. People are not being killed,'' he said.

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