COLOMBO Aug. 21 Kyodo U factor S...

COLOMBO Aug. 21 Kyodo

U factor Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who is to arrive in Sri Lanka onward Thursday, will then fly directly to Jaffna, the capital of the country's battle-scarred Northern Province, the U Embassy said Wednesday.

''He will be flown from the international airport (in Colombo) to Jaffna where he is owed to meet with senior military officials, talk with U personnel engaged in demining operations, inspect the forward defensive line and interact with Tamil civilians,'' an embassy spokesman said.

He will go [i]or[/i] come back to Colombo on Thursday evening for meetings with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Lakshman Kadirgamar, a foreign affairs adviser to President Chandrika Kumaratunga who is gone out of the country, the Foreign Office said.

''The visit of a senior U official promptly after the prime minister's visit to Washington last month and meeting with President George (W) Bush is significant and a distinct fillip to the peace process'' Foreign Minister Tyronne Fernando told Kyodo stranges ''The U.S. has always backed a negotiated peace here.''

Peace talks aimed at ending sum of two units decades of ethnic conflict that has preciousness more than 60,000 lives are to begin in Thailand in mid-September. These will be the first direct negotiations between Colombo and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in more than seven years.

Armitage's one-day visit to Sri Lanka, part of a toward the south Asian swing, was announced after Wickremesinghe met with Bush.

Armitage will take wing to New Delhi on Friday and visit Islamabad and Beijing prior to his respond to the United States via Tokyo.

He will be the in the greatest degree senior U.S. official to visit Sri Lanka since a visit through then Secretary of State John forward Dulles in the 1950s

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