wfn.org | WCC NEWS: Sri Lanka: churches call for peace talks

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches - News Release
Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
For immediate release - 23/01/2006

SRI LANKA: WCC BACKS CHURCHES' CALL FOR RETURN TO PEACE TALKS

"Dismayed and concerned" about the "recent lethal escalation of armed
violence" in the North and East of Sri Lanka, World Council of Churches
(WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia wrote on 20 January to the
country's president, Mahinda Rajapaksa.

In his letter, Kobia says that the WCC supports the Sri Lankan churches'
call to the president, leaders of political parties and the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) "to take immediate steps to stop this spiral
of violence* and sit at the peace talks without delay".

Referring to a 2002 cease-fire agreement and subsequent peace talks
between the government and the LTTE that ended over two decades of
conflict, in which over 64,000 people lost their lives, the letter warns
that "if the rapidly deteriorating situation is not brought under
immediate control," another long-drawn-out war might be the result.

The full text of Kobia's letter is available (in English) on the WCC
website at:
http://www.oikoumene.org/Escalation_of_violence_in.1752.0.html

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363
media@wcc-coe.org

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The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 347, in
more than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works
cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly,
which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally
inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by
general secretary Samuel Kobia from the Methodist church in Kenya.