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Chandrika to meet Buddhist priests on peace

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has called for a meeting with chief Buddhist priests amid rising protest from the clergy over her constitutional reforms aimed at ending the ethnic war.

The Sunday Times said in a report that Kumaratunga had invited the chief priests, or mahanayakes, of Sri Lanka's four Buddhist sects to her home as she was unable to meet them in their temples due to security reasons.

The newspaper said the meeting had been scheduled for Monday, but the mahanayakes had yet confirm their attendance.

Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

The call for the meeting comes amid a campaign by the mahanayakes and majority Sinhala nationalist organisations against planned constitutional reforms and possible talks with Tamil Tiger rebels with Norway acting as mediator.

Sri Lanka has been racked by 16 years of war in which the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are fighting for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the country's north and east.

Buddhist monks and nationalist organisations have held demonstrations in the capital Colombo in recent weeks demanding the government pursue its war against the LTTE instead of looking to negotiate peace with the rebels.

Fierce fighting has been reported in Sri Lanka's northern Jaffna peninsula in the past two weeks as the LTTE make a push to recapture the stronghold they lost in 1996.-Reuters