Final set of APRC proposals this week

by Ananth Palakidnar

Minister of Science and Technology and Chairman of the All Party Representatives Committee Prof. Tissa Vitharana will present the APRC's final set of proposals this week. Prof. Vitharana told the Sunday Observer that he was satisfied with the contributions by the political parties and agreement has been reached on most of the issues.

"Though the agreement was reached on a majority of the issues, the consensus had to be reached on the issues of unitary state, unit of devolution and land. However, with the recent meetings these issues have also been addressed satisfactorily," Prof. Vitharana said.

According to Prof. Vitharana, the APRC which was created on the directives of President Mahinda Rajapaksa a year ago, so far had thirty-eight meetings including the two meetings held last week to finalise the issues that were evading consensus. President Rajapaksa also attended one of the final meetings and he was briefed on the developments.

"Along with the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the Opposition United National Party, a total number of fourteen political parties had submitted their proposals dealing with the ethnic issue, to the All Party Representative Committee. Now with most of the political parties reaching consensus on most of the important issues, the final set of proposals will be released by the APRC this week," Prof. Vitharana said.

Meanwhile, the Co-Chair countries at their recent Oslo meeting on the Lankan issue and the International Community at large had stated that the final set of proposals by the APRC was very much expected by them to decide on the future of the Lankan peace process.