Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse today invited the LTTE to enter peace talks, a day after the rebels issued a deadline to the new government to come up with a “reasonable” political settlement or risk establishment of a separate Tamil state. Rajapakse, in an address to Colombo-based diplomats, said he wanted talks with the Tigers but did not directly respond to the deadline issued by the LTTE. ‘‘Let me use this occasion to reiterate my invitation to (LTTE leader Velupillai) Prabhakaran for talks,’’ the President said. His speech was released by his office as well as the foreign ministry. However, there was no cabinet meeting to discuss the statement made by Prabhakaran, a spokesman for Rajapakse’s office said. He said the government was also not issuing a statement on the LTTE supremo’s ultimatum, but the President had referred to it in his speech to Colombo-based diplomats. ‘‘We can resume work immediately on reviewing the operation of the ceasefire, whilst we prepare ourselves for eventual substantive talks,’’ the President said. Rajapakse, who told parliament on Friday that he wanted a ‘‘new peace process’’ and a ‘‘revision’’ of the current truce, said he expected the Tigers to abide by the ceasefire, stop human rights abuses, political killings and child recruitment.
