Sri Lanka said Thursday it had summoned Norway’s envoy to complain about the Nordic country’s alleged role in arranging a telephone conversation between Tamil Tiger rebels and a UN official.
Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona said the government voiced its "displeasure" over the call supposedly arranged last week between UN humanitarian chief John Holmes and a Tiger leader based abroad.
Kohona said Norway "admitted" helping the international representative of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Selvarasa Pathmanathan, who is better known as K.P., speak with Holmes.
Norwegian embassy spokeswoman Rannueig Skofteland confirmed that the country’s ambassador had been summoned for a meeting at the Sri Lankan foreign ministry but declined to comment further.
Norway’s ambassador, Tore Hattrem, was called to the foreign ministry earlier this week, Sri Lankan officials said.
"We reminded the ambassador that K.P. is a wanted man," Kohona told a news conference in Colombo.
"We have also alerted regional countries about K.P. and warned them that K.P. may use their countries as a base for illegal activities."
K.P. was known to be in Thailand, where he had once been detained by Thai police, but his latest whereabouts are unknown.
Norway helped broker a ceasefire between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE in 2002, which later unravelled when fighting broke out in 2005.
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