Sri Lankan president, Rajapaksa hold key talks

Colombo, May 6: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirise and former president Mahinda Rajapaksa held key talks on Wednesday which was seen as an attempt to bridge a division which has emerged within the same party which both politicians belong to.

The meeting, the first since Sirise defeated Rajapaksa in the January 8 presidential election, took place at the parliament complex in the presence of several members of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), Xinhua news agency reported.

SLFP member Duminda Dissayake told jourlists soon after the meeting that the talks between Sirise and Rajapaksa had been successful but added that details of the talks would be divulged only after an SLFP meeting.

Sirise was the health minister in Rajapaksa’s government but he split from the government to contest in the presidential election which he eventually won.

Following his victory, Sirise was made chairman of the SLFP while Rajapaksa and former president Chandrika Kumaratunga were med as advisors. Sirise formed a tiol unity government with the United tiol Party which was earlier in the opposition and Rajapaksa later accused the government of being involved in a witch hunt against him and his family as well as SLFP members who are supporting him. (IANS)