New Delhi: European Union (EU) today (Nov 28) said in unequivocal terms that the international community will not tolerate any "divisive" outcome in Sri Lanka and hoped that Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran's commitment to peace was "genuine".

"I don't think the international community will tolerate a divisive outcome. He (Prabhakaran) has committed to peace six times during my hour-and-ten minute meeting," EU external relations commissioner Chris Patten, who met Prabhakaran earlier this week, told reporters.

Patten, who is in New Delhi to participate in the two-day Indo-EU summit, held talks with Prabhakaran in the LTTE-held town of Kilinochchi on Wednesday (Nov 26).

Asked if he believed in what Prabhakaran had told him, Patten said, "The past is not happy. I hope his commitment to peace now is genuine."

Soon after the meeting with Patten, Tigers' political wing leader S P Thamilselvan had said LTTE was committed to peace, but the onus of maintaining the current ceasefire rested with the Sri Lankan Government.

"It is completely up to the Sinhala polity to see there is no return to war," Thamilselvan had said.

Patten had met the LTTE supremo to seek assurance from Prabhakaran that he was committed to implementing the ceasefire brokered and put into operation since February 2002 by Norway.

Regretting that the island country was "choked" with conflict, Patten said Prabhakaran now understood clearly that the international community wanted a genuine commitment to ending violence.

He also said Sri Lankan polity should be very clear that the peace process was not a "divisive and partisan" issue and hence there should be consensus.

PTI