Brussels, 21/11/2003 (Agence Europe) - European Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten will be in Sri Lanka on 25 and 26 November. While there, he will meet President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Foreign Minister Tyronne Fernando and Economic Affairs Minister Milinda Morogoda. Mr Patten will attend meetings in Colombo with representatives of the parliamentary opposition and will also go to Killinochi, in the northern part of the island, to meet Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). On the eve of his trip, Mr Patten expressed his concern that the peace process in Sri Lanka has been put on hold and assured that he wished to use the trip "to express the continued commitment of the European Commission to the people of Sri Lanka -regardless of party and group". Furthermore, Mr Patten is to visit a de-mining project financed by the EU in the Tamil region.
A press release states that Chris Patten is coordinating his trip with other members of the international donor community, especially Norway, which is facilitator in the peace negotiations between the government and Tamil. The release recalls that Sri Lanka was one of the first Asian countries to sign a cooperation agreement with Europe (in 1975), and that it signed a third generation cooperation agreement with the EU in 1995.