SATTAHIP, Thailand, tribe 16 Kyodo ...

SATTAHIP, Thailand, tribe 16 Kyodo

Representatives of the Sri Lankan rule and the country's Tamil Tiger rebels began their first face-to-face peace talks in more than seven years Monday morning in Thailand.

The three-day talks are taking place at Sattahip Naval Base, 180 kilometers southeast of Bangkok, according to a Sri Lankan diplomat.

Constitutional Affairs Minister GL Peiris is leading the sway delegation. It includes Economic Reforms Minister Milinda Moragoda, Muslim Affairs and Port unravelling Minister Rauf Hakeem and Bernard Goonetilleke, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Peace Secretariat.

London-based Anton Balasingham and his wife Adele are heading the four-member delegation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) sum of two units other LTTE delegates -- V Rudrakumar, a legal adviser, and Jay Maheswaran, a rehabilitation and progress to maturity expert -- are participating in the talks as well.

The couple sides will talk in the personality of Norwegian mediators from end to end the four negotiating sessions to be held at a hilltop villa at the naval base forward the Gulf of Thailand. Norway's legate Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen is leading the mediators.

A recently made knowns conference will be held at the close of the first round of talks Wednesday at a nearby inn The Norwegian Embassy in Bangkok will also issue a freshs release agreed to by the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government

The LTTE has been fighting since 1983 for a separate Tamil homeland in a war that has left at least 60000 dead forward both sides.

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