High hopes for Sri Lanka ceasefire

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected on a promise to open peace talks with the LTTE

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- A ceasefire in Sri Lanka's long-running civil war is due to begin at midnight Monday with the country's newly elected prime minister saying he hopes the halt in hostilities will last longer than its initial period of a month.

"The cessation of hostilities (is) starting tonight and going on till 24th of January," Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told a news conference after a three-day visit to India.

"My feeling is since the (economic) embargo is being lifted the cessation of hostilities will continue after January 24."

He added that his government had been in touch "informally" with Norway, which has tried for the past two years to broker negotiations.

He said a formal request to Oslo to resume peace talks would be made in the next few days, after which the first priority would be "to get the humanitarian issues going" -- a process he said would "take a month or more."

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The ceasefire with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is the first for the country in more than seven years and is fueling hopes that a permanent peace deal ending the 18-year long war is just around the corner

In advance of the midnight deadline Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who won December 5 elections after campaigning for peace and economic recovery, ordered most roads reopened and military checkpoints dismantled.

"We are doing our part and we hope that our opponents will not take any undue advantage of the situation," said Defense Ministry spokesman Brigadier Sanath Karunaratne.

The LTTE, whose campaign for a separate Tamil homeland since 1989 has left more than 64,000 people dead, announced a month-long cease-fire on December 19 urging the government to reciprocate as a prelude to formal peace talks.

Wickremesinghe's government responded two days later.