President Mahinda Rajapakse (L) congratulates new Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake (R) on Nov. 21, 2005. (Photo: Xinhua)

    COLOMBO, Nov. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Senior politician Ratnasiri Wickramanayake was sworn in as Sri Lanka's 14th prime minister by the President Mahinda Rajapakse here Monday.

    Wickremanayake took the oath of office before Rajapakse, who resigned from the premiership on Saturday after narrowly winning last week's presidential election.

    Wickramanayake, 73, thus becomes the prime minister for the second time in his career. The politician held the position from October 2000 to December 2001.

    Rajapakse, who was sworn in Saturday afternoon, changed previous plans to give the premiership to foreign minister Anura Bandaranaike, the brother of former president Chandrika Kumaratunga.

    Wickremanayake is known as a hardliner and has previously advocated that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels, who had been fighting against government forces to set up an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east since 1983 until they entered into a Norwegian-brokered peace process in February 2002, should be militarily defeated.

    Wickramanayake was the minister of Agriculture, Law and Order, Public Security since April 2004.

    He entered politics in 1960 from the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party and has held several key ministerial portfolios during his long political career.

    Meanwhile the Sri Lankan parliament's current session was declared close by Rajapakse on Monday. It will be reconvened for its new session on Nov. 29 enabling the new president to make his policy address in the assembly, an official said. Enditem