President and Opposition Leader on tsunami relief

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge in a letter addressed to the opposition leader Ranil Wickremasinghe expressed her surprise and regret over the rejetion of her sincere offer to discuss an important issue of national importance.

Sandesaya asked Deputy General Secretary of the United National Party, Tissa Attanayake why UNP leader has taken this stand.

“Until we see a clear documented proposal by the government on what the president called as 'A common programme for the implementation of humanitarian efforts for tsunami affected areas' , we cannot pitch our opinions in” Tissa Attanayake said.

Commenting on UNP’s refusal to attend a discussion chaired by the president he said that UNP has already adopted a similar programme that the government was apprised of , and the UNP will only contribute to the discussion if the president has differing ways and means to address the issue.

“When we said that we have intentions of working with the LTTE in order to get the correct rehabilitation efforts underway in Northern and Eastern provinces, the president criticised us harshly", he said.

"It seems now that she has to do the same thing. There needn’t be a different relief effort, the same program drafted to carry out the peace effort in the northern and the eastern provinces can be carried out to relieve the tsunami victims",Attanayke added.