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| Sunday, 13 October 2002 |
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"A Sri Lankan solution" to the Middle East by Our UN Special Correspondent T.F. Deen United Nations Sri Lanka's Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Al Haj. A. H. M. Azwer offered what he called "a Sri Lankan solution" to the Middle East crisis, when he addressed a meeting of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) at the United Nations. Since a new government was installed in power last year, he said, Sri Lanka has launched a series of confidence-building measures - one step at a time. "We have had a cease-fire agreement. We have laid down arms. We have had a cessation of hostilities. And we have stopped shooting - and started talking", he told the gathering of non-governmental organisations. The meeting, officially billed "the International Conference of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People', was sponsored by the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. Azwer said Sri Lanka was also fortunate in having the good offices of Norway as a facilitator in the ongoing peace negotiations. Asked by an NGO representative whether Sri Lanka would be willing to play the role of a facilitator between the Israelis and the Palestinians, Azwer said he will carry that message to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. "I will take this to my government", he added. He also told the meeting that all the "pious resoultions" adopted by the General Assembly and the Security Council means nothing - unless and until they are implemented. Speaking at the same meeting, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan quoted the poet W. B. Yeats who said that "things fall apart" because the "centre cannot hold". Responding to Annan's comments, Azwer told delegates that only the United Nations is capable of holding the centre from falling apart. The United Nations, he said, should asset itself and bring a peaceful resolution to a problem that has lasted over 50 long years. "The Palestinian people should cease to be refugees and given a homeland of their own. That is their inalienable birthright. The world owes the Palestinians a right to a new nation state", he added. |
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