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Peace and tsunami aid dominate Kadir's London agenda
From Neville de Silva in London
Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar will meet his British counterpart Jack Straw for talks in London on Monday, the British Foreign Office said Friday. Mr. Kadirgamar's visit to London this week will coincide with a visit to several European capitals by a 12-member delegation from the LTTE led by its Political Wing Leader S. P. Thamilselvan. However the Tiger delegation will not be visiting Britain because the LTTE is banned here as a terrorist organisation.

Foreign Office sources denied a report in a Sri Lankan website, Lanka Truth, that the LTTE delegation will visit Britain as part of its European tour. However, the Tigers are expected to visit the Republic of Ireland. The foreign minister's programme will include a meeting with Hilary Benn, the Secretary for International Development and with an umbrella organisation of several NGOs that was formed and went into immediate action following last December's tsunami that devastated parts of Sri Lanka. Mr. Kadirgamar is expected to thank the British Government through Minister Benn and the British people through the disaster committee, for the generous tsunami relief.

Mr. Kadirgamar is also expected to brief Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on the discussions with the LTTE to set up a joint mechanism for the distribution of international tsunami aid, the stalemate in the peace talks and the LTTE's continuing violation of UN resolutions on the recruitment of child combatants.

Later in the week, the foreign minister is scheduled to address the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) on Sri Lanka's foreign and security policy. It was the IISS publication "Military Balance 2003/2004" that first confirmed the LTTE had equipped itself with a helicopter and two light aircraft. That was repeated in its later publication released last year.

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