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Lankan president rules out homeland for Tigers
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse on Monday ruled out Tamil Tiger demands for a separate homeland in the island's north and east, but said he would rein in armed groups %u2013 a central rebel demand ahead of crunch talks.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have threatened to resume an armed struggle that led to two decades of civil war which killed more than 64,000 people up until a 2002 truce unless the government gives them a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils. "There's only one country, we can share power. Not a separate state. That idea must be taken off ... it is completely out," Rajapakse told Reuters in an interview ahead of upcoming talks with the rebels in Switzerland to avoid a slide back to war. This is a small country, where you can't have two states. I won't allow the country to be divided. You have to give up the concept of having two nations, or two countries ... There is no Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. There cannot be an Eelam."
Posted by: Fred 2006-02-14
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=142596