(22 Feb 2002)
1. Various exterior of Norwegian Foreign Office
2. Norwegian Foreign Minister, Jan Petersen sitting at table
3. Various journalists at table
4. Set-up Jan Petersen
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Jan Petersen, Norwegian Foreign Minister:
"As from Zero Hours on 23rd February 2002 a ceasefire agreement enters into force between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tamil Tigers, or the Eelam LTTE. The ceasefire document signed by Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and LTTE leader Prabhakaran, has been deposited with the Norwegian government and we have been asked to make the agreement public".
6. Wide of Norwegian negotiating team including Jan Petersen
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Jan Petersen, Norwegian Foreign Minister:
"I think the parties have a will to move the process forward. They realise there is no military solution to a conflict like this and they realise that there has been a lot of human suffering. And it cant go on like this so I think I can see a real will among the parties to succeed".
8. Wide pan from press Norwegian negotiating team, without Jan Petersen
STORYLINE:
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen announced in Oslo, Norway on Friday that the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels have signed a long-term cease-fire agreement, a crucial step toward peace talks to end their civil war.
Norway has spent more than two years trying to get the two sides to negotiate and end the war which has killed more than 65,000 people in the last 18 years.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have fought since 1983 to separate the north and east of Sri Lanka into an independent country for the 3.2 million minority Tamils, who are mostly Hindu. They have insisted they cannot prosper in the same nation as the majority Sinhalese, whose Buddhism is the state religion and who dominate government, education and military posts.
No date has been given for further peace talks, but Petersen said the mediators hope they will take place by spring. Scandinavian observers should begin arriving in Sri Lanka on Monday to monitor the cease-fire, which begins on Saturday 23 Feb 2002.
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