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Aziz Haniffa India Abroad correspondent in Washington
Norway's special peace envoy Erik Solheim met with US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, South Asia experts drawn from the State Department, Pentagon and the National Security Council, US law-makers and their staff, and Sri Lankan Americans, to brief them of his most recent efforts to affect a truce between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
The Norwegian envoy admitted to this correspondent that the situation is extremely difficult, but not hopeless. He said he had conveyed this message in his briefing to Armitage and senior US government officials.
Solheim left Sri Lanka last week after failing to bring Colombo and the Tamil Tigers closer to a peace accord. The island republic has witnessed a fresh surge of rebel violence that left 12 soldiers dead.
He returned from Tiger territory on May 18 after talks with the militants, met with President Chandrika Kumaratunga before he left, the second time during his five-day visit.
Solheim said he had "a very good meeting" with Armitage and that the senior US official had assured him of Washington's "explicit support" for Oslo's peace efforts in Sri Lanka, within the parameters of the island nation's unity and integrity.
Later, at a meeting with the Congressional Caucus on Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan Americans, co-chaired by Representative Frank Pallone (Democrat-New Jersey) and Connie Morella, the Maryland Republican, Solheim said Norway was only playing the role of a facilitator at the "specific request of the (Sri Lanka) president and the LTTE," and would "not do anything that both sides do not want us to do."
"We are not trying to impose peace in Sri Lanka," he emphasised.
Solheim also met with the staff of influential law-makers like Representatives Benjamin Gilman, (Republican-New York), Tom Lantos, (Republican-California), Sherrod Brown, (Democrat-Ohio) and Senator Robert Torricelli (Democrat-New Jersey), all members of the House International Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He said there were "certain positive elements," particularly since "the international framework for peace in Sri Lanka is in place."
No foreign power, he said, was trying to scuttle the peace effort and the most important countries like India and the United States "are working closely together" to help this process.
Solheim said there was agreement in the international community that the unity and integrity of Sri Lanka has to be maintained, but that at the same time "Tamil aspirations have to be met in a substantial manner."
He said there has been some progress, but that it is "far too slow." Both sides, he added, realised the value of confidence building measures as a precursor to negotiations on ways to resolve the conflict that has taken more than 60,000 lives in the nearly two-decade war.
Solheim said both sides realised that neither could absolutely prevail militarily.
He said the focus of Norway's efforts was to lay the groundwork for negotiations between the government and the Tamil Tigers, and that "I cannot speak on behalf of the Sri Lankan government or the LTTE."
Asked by US law-makers what the US could do, Solheim said it was "very important that the United States ask the parties constantly to find a negotiated settlement," to the conflict, even though he noted that Oslo was loathe to be perceived as "running around the world giving advise to foreign governments," as to what they should do to help the peace process in Sri Lanka.
Solheim did not meet this time around with LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabakaran, but said following their meeting last year, a promise he (Prabakaran) had made that there would be no LTTE attacks in the south had continued to hold.
He also emphasised that India had been kept informed of the envisaged peace efforts every step of the way. "India has been the number one priority and their knowledge" of the situation in Sri Lanka, "is far superior to anything we can dream of," he said.
Next to India, Solheim said the most support and co-operation for Oslo's peace efforts came from the US.
Meanwhile, senior diplomatic sources in Washington said Solheim's latest efforts had fallen apart because the LTTE was once again using the Oslo mission to play for time to launch a fresh and sustained war against the government.
One source said Kumaratunga had given Solheim the authority to strike a deal with the LTTE to come to the negotiating table. But the LTTE had suddenly thrown up three new conditions -- to lift the 1988 ban on the group, the removal of an economic embargo on rebel-held areas in the north and a pretalks truce.
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