COLOMBO April 20 Kyodo The leader...

COLOMBO April 20 Kyodo

The leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Velupillai Prabhakaran, met Tuesday with 22 newly chooseed parliamentarians of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) widely regarded as proxies of the LTTE in rebel-held Kilinochchi in northern Sri Lanka.

The pro-LTTE TamilNet website said discussion focused onward moving forward peace talks that have been stalled since April last year and negotiating Tiger proposals for an Interim Self-Governing Authority in their claimed northeastern homeland with the recently made known government in Colombo.

This was the first meeting between Prabhakaran and the Tamil members of parliament and was considered significant as the LTTE leader does not normally attend of that kind meetings.

He usually leaves routine dealings in the hands of the chief of his political wing SP Thamilchelvan.

TamilNet said the LTTE hierarchy, including Thamilchelvan, intelligence chief Pottu Amman and first note of the scale military figures, were associated with Prabhakaran at Tuesday's meeting when the Tiger leader told the parliamentarians that the Tamil race had voted for them ''on the basis of the principles of Tamil nationalism.''

''You should understand their feelings and work to realize their aspirations,'' he said.

The meeting between Prabhakaran and the TNA arrange which makes up a vital shut up in Sri Lanka's hung parliament, was held 48 hours ahead of the first meeting of of recent origin parliament where the minority rule of President Chandrika Kumaratunga's United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) is desperately seeking to iron without differences with its Marxist junior partner.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) widely credited with powering the UPFA election victory, has refused to accept cabinet portfolios allotted to them, accusing Kumaratunga of failing to honor pre-poll agreements.

Embarrassed on the JVP ministers and deputies not taking their oaths of office, efforts to patch up differences ahead of Thursday's first meeting of parliament continue.

Meanwhile, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) a party of Buddhist monk that won nine crucial seats in the April 2 election, accused Kumaratunga of a ''great betrayal'' on not exploiting the split between the northern and eastern factions of the LTTE to weaken the Tigers.

''It was a historic opportunity to use the split in the LTTE to crush terrorism,'' JHU lawmaker-monk Omalpe Sobhitha told reporters Tuesday.

Prabhakaran swiftly finised the rebellion led by his eastern military commander Col Karuna, who has now gone missing, at blatantly ignoring his cease-fire agreement with the Colombo conduct and moving armed fighters across government-held territory and by way of sea.

Colombo has complained to Scandinavian cease-fire monitors of the violations, still neither government troops nor the Sri Lanka Navy did anything to resist the motions by Prabhakaran's forces.

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