Special report: Ceasefire over in Sri Lanka

    COLOMBO, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lankan government is hoping to discuss core issues of the island's long drawn out separatist armed conflict at this week's Geneva talks with the Tamil Tiger rebels, a senior government minister said here Wednesday.

    Keheliya Rambukwella, the government's defense spokesman who is also the Minister of Policy Planning, said that the government delegation, which departed here Wednesday for Oct. 28-29 talks, would pin the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels to a fixed time table in discussing the problems affecting the Tamil minority.

    "We will have a diary of a time table based on issues of democracy, human rights, child recruitment, infrastructure development in Tamil regions, final unit of devolution, multi party system and ethnic pluralism", Rambukwella said.

    He said the government was happy that the Tigers had agreed to have the 2-day talks. Earlier in the day prior to his departure for Geneva, the Head of the government delegation Nimal Siripala De Silva told reporters that the process would be a difficult one.

    He was referring to military confrontations between the two warring parties since the late July, in which more than 200,000 civilians had been displaced.

    The Tigers too departed Wednesday and said that they were attending talks to please the international community.

    The international backers of the faltering Norwegian backed process have been urging the two sides to meet at the negotiating table by giving up violence.

    Both sides accuse each other for acts of violence, which reached a zenith since the end of 2005. Over 2,500 people have been killed in the cycle of violence endangering the Norwegian backed ceasefire of 2002.