In an effort to keep the threadbare peace process on track, Sri Lankan government on Thursday caved in to a Tamil Tiger demand of removing the European truce monitors, who branded the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as terrorists, from the island nation but said it should be done in six months instead of one.
The government's peace secretariat in a statement said the Tigers' demand to remove monitors from three European Union member states, which banned the Tigers as terrorists in May was unethical, but they agreed to go along.
However, "We hope that the LTTE would reconsider its position and agree to Norway's more practical and reasonable suggestion (to replace them in six months)," it said.
The peace secretariat said the LTTE wanted the Danish, Finnish and Swedish monitors removed within a month.
"This is an unreasonable demand that ignores the service provided by the group of Scandinavian monitors to Sri Lanka's peace process and is oblivious to the realities of international relations. In order to ensure the effective monitoring of the Ceasefire Agreement as well as to advance the peace process, it is highly impractical to expect that these changes could be effected within a one month period as demanded by the LTTE," it said.
Government spokesman and Media Minister Anura Yapa said it was "unreasonable" for the Tiger rebels to demand the removal of ceasefire monitors from three European Union member states -- Denmark, Finland and Sweden.