COLOMBO: The abrogation of the truce signed with the Tamil Tiger rebels six years ago has secured a ‘broader space’ for all sections of the Tamil community to work towards ‘sustainable peace’, a government statement said on Tuesday on the sixth anniversary of ceasefire on Feb 26.

The Government Secretariat for Co-ordinating the peace process bashed the then government, the United National Party for ushering in an ‘ill-conceived and unsustainable agreement’ for the LTTE to carry out its assassinations and build up its militarily capacity.

“The ceasefire agreement limited discussions to being between the government and the LTTE, and thus denied opportunity to include others from the Tamil community,” the statement said adding that in retrospect the ceasefire ‘became a dead letter; an instrument to negotiate a solution with an uninterested party who wanted to exclude any others who might be serious about a negotiated solution.’

The Peace Secretariat also claimed that the annulment of the ceasefire agreement last month did not fetter the government from seeking a ‘long lasting solution that addresses the genuine grievances of all sections of the people, and in particular the Tamil community in the North and East of this country’.

The statement comes amidst raging fighting between government troops and the rebels in the North and a meeting between President Mahinda Rajapakse and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to discuss a framework for a political solution for the Tamil minorities.

Political sources said a meeting between the President and Wickremesinghe ended on a ‘positive note’ with the Opposition Leader giving an assurance that his party would not jeopardise the government’s move to fully implement the 13th Amendment to the Lankan constitution which gave effect to a provincial council system based devolution provisions of the Indo-Lanka Accord, signed in July 1987.

The meeting with the opposition leader took place a month after an All Party Representative Committee (APRC) appointed by the President to deliberate on a political solution proposed maximum devolution powers to the Tamil dominated Northern and Eastern Provinces under the 13th Amendment.

“We are continuing to defeat the LTTE militarily but that will not prevent us from discussing the way forward to a political solution,” government defence spokesman Keheliye Rambukwella said.

Neither the LTTE nor the pro rebel Tamil National Alliance has shown interest in the government’s plans to use the 13th amendment as the main tool towards devolution.

Meanwhile last week a senior Tamil politician estranged with the LTTE in a letter to the rebel leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran urged an end to the war. “If you have any sympathy for the young men in your cadre who are getting killed in large numbers every day, please call for a cease-fire unilaterally and save the lives of the children of the poor parents, most of whom had been recruited by you compulsorily,” President of the Tamil United Liberation Front, V Anandasangaree said in a detailed letter to the LTTE leader.

Since the annulment of the ceasefire by the government last month over 1,500 LTTE cadres have been killed according to military statistics.