Attorney General Kamalasabesan has made this observation in his reply to Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, who had sought Attorney General Department’s advice on the local and international implications of lifting the ban on the LTTE in the country.

With the advice of the Attorney General, it is now almost certain that the government of Sri Lanka will lift ban on the LTTE before the preliminary direct talks, scheduled to be held in June in Thailand.

LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, who addressed a press conference on April 10 after a gap of 12 years, reiterated the deproscription of the LTTE was a must for any face-to-face talks with the government.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said early this week that his government was seriously considering the LTTE’s demand to lift ban on the organisation.

He said his government wanted to lift the ban locally without affecting the international ban on the organisation, to enable it to participate in the negotiations.

Meanwhile, a Norwegian peace envoy held talks today with Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who has recently softened her stance on efforts to end one of the world’s longest running conflicts. The meeting was part of a mission by Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen to finalise arrangements for talks between Tamil rebels and the government run by Kumaratunga’s archrival, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe.

“The president remains fully committed to the continuation of the peace process,” Kumaratunga’s office said in a statement, without giving details of the meeting.

Kumaratunga recently softened her opposition to a rebel demand for legal recognition ahead of talks.

However, Kumaratunga has asked the government to bargain hard with the rebels, fighting since 1983 for a separate state for minority Tamils in the north and east.

Mr Helgesen has also met Wickremesinghe and rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran who said peace talks expected to start in May would be delayed till June until the truce agreement was fully implemented.

Meanwhile to make it easier for Colombo to remove its ban on the LTTE, the USA has said its ban on the separatist Tamil organisation will remain in place, even if the Sri Lankan government decided to lift its domestic ban.

Annan yesterday urged the UN Security Council to pursue the option of a “robust’’ force, often advocated by Palestinians, rather than wait for an invitation from Israel. But diplomats said nothing would happen unless the USA took the lead, which it has not done or even considered.

However, diplomats said Mr Annan was pushing the idea in order to get the USA to consider it seriously. Israel could give tacit consent if it found there was no other way out of the current impasse, the diplomats added.

Elaborating on a concept he voiced in Geneva last Friday, Mr Annan said such a force would be in Israel’s interest, and would put “an international spotlight on any extremist Palestinian groups that try to undermine a ceasefire by continuing to engage in terrorism’’ such as suicide bombings.

The force being discussed by Mr Annan would not be organised by the United Nations but by a group of countries. The council should authorise such an operation under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which allows the use of force, to stop the latest upsurge of violence that began 18 months ago, Mr Annan said.

But US Ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte told reporters that Israel would have to agree because “any arrangement of this kind would have to be with the mutual consent of the parties.’’

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer emphasised that the USA would back civilian monitors, which, Israel approved of as of a part of a ceasefire. Asked about an armed force, Mr Fleischer said President George W. Bush “thinks the purpose of America’s military is to fight and win wars.’’

Ramallah (West Bank): Israeli tanks early today thrust into Qalqilya, a West Bank city from which Israeli forces had withdrawn last week under US pressure, Palestinian witnesses said.

They said tanks and armoured vehicles moved into Qalqilya, in the central West Bank close to the dividing line with Israel, from two directions and sporadic gunfire was heard.

Gaza City: Three Palestinian men were shot dead overnight during an incursion by Israeli tanks and troops into the town of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security and hospital sources said on Friday. An Israeli military source said the unit was looking for suspects and had opened fire after coming under attacks from grenades and light weapons.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian suicide bomber exploded his car on Friday near the entrance to the Israeli settlement bloc of Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip, witnesses told AFP.

MOSCOW: Saudi Arabia today laid to rest any lingering concern that the world’s biggest oil exporter might consider backing a Muslim-wide oil embargo in support of the Palestinian cause.

“This is like cutting off your nose to spite your face,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters in Moscow after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Saudi Minister was responding to questions about how Riyadh would react to Iraq’s call for backing in its 30-day oil embargo, launched last week to protest Israeli military incursions into Palestinian areas of the West Bank.

Baghdad says it could extend the ban if Israel does not complete an unconditional withdrawal by May 8. Prince Saud underlined Saudi support for the Palestinians but said Riyadh saw oil as a resource for investment and development rather than an economic weapon.

Despite the move, prosecutor Raja Quereshi told The Associated Press he expected a new judge to be appointed in time to hear the opening statements and entering of pleas as scheduled on Monday.

The attorney for the alleged mastermind of Pearl’s kidnapping, British-born Islamic militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, had requested the removal of judge Arshad Noor Khan because the judge heard Saeed admit his role in the crime in a February 14 court appearance. The comments were not made under oath and are considered inadmissible, but attorney Abdul Waheed Katpar asked for the anti-terrorism court judge to be removed because he could be called as a witness.

Mr Quereshi said he did not challenge the request, and that he was happy to have a new judge appointed if it would allay the fears of the defence.

The affair is the latest in a rash of scandals in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that have sparked a slide in Mr Koizumi’s popularity ratings — his main weapon against LDP old guard rivals who oppose his agenda for economic and political reforms.

Upper House Speaker Yutaka Inoue — who has denied the allegations — resigned as Speaker after threats by opposition parties to boycott business in the chamber.

Top government spokesman Yasuo Fukuda told a news conference that the impact on parliamentary business could not be ignored.

File picture of Italian pilot Luigi Fasulo. — Reuters photo

The paper quoted Luigi Fasulo’s son Marco and a friend, identified only as Franco, who both insisted the incident yesterday that immediately raised the spectre of a new September 11-type attack was a suicide.

“What do you mean an accident? It was a suicide, a suicide, I’m telling you. There were people who wanted to ruin him, to destroy him financially, so he committed suicide,” Marco Fasulo said, without elaborating.

The friend Franco, meanwhile, recounted his last conversation with the pilot on Sunday. “I am ruined, they used up everything I had, it’s a group located here, they got more than a million dollars (1.1 million euros) from me,” the friend quoted Luigi as saying. AFP

“Support us and don’t let us down,” a man believed to be Ahmed Ibrahim Alhaznawi, one of the September 11 hijackers, tells viewers in the tape broadcast by Arabic channel Al-Jazeera yesterday.

While Alhaznawi focused on USA as enemy No 1, he also mentioned Jammu and Kashmir and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.