European Parliament
President. –
Question No 32 by Sajjad Karim 
Subject: Sri Lanka: EU's response to Sri Lanka Presidential election result and Pirapaharan statement
On 27 November 2005 Velupillai Pirapaharan, leader of the LTTE, made 'an urgent and final appeal' to the newly elected President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaske, to reinvigorate the peace process and 'satisfy the political aspirations of the Tamil people.' Pirapaharan indicated that, if 'a reasonable political solution' was not offered soon, the LTTE would intensify its struggle for self-determination, possibly by violent means. What is the Commission's response to the tone and content of Pirapaharan's Hero's Day speech?
Given the stalemate in the peace process since the LTTE withdrew in 2003, and the seemingly irreconcilable zero-sum perspectives of Rajapaske, (who campaigned with promises not to share power with the LTTE) and Pirapaharan, does the EU not feel it has an overwhelming responsibility, as a Tokyo co-chair and a key donor, to open an urgent dialogue with both parties before they return to violence, to find a solution which realises the Tamil right to self-determination within a united Sri Lanka?

