Sunday, November 20 2005 14:51 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Colombo: Sri Lanka's new President, Mahinda Rajapakse yesterday (Nov 19, 2005) said he was ready to open talks with Tamil Tigers but would review the ongoing Norway-brokered truce between the troops and the rebels.

In a bid to shrug off the label of 'war president' given to him by the Tigers, Rajapakse, at his swearing-in ceremony, announced willingness to negotiate peace with the rebels whenever they wanted to re-start the talks.

While expressing commitment to the 2002 ceasefire agreement now in force, the new President stressed that he would overhaul it to stamp out the almost daily incidents of violence and abduction of children, which have been going on despite the truce with the military.

"I want to state the dedication of my government to upholding the ceasefire (but) I am also ready to review the ceasefire agreement," he said in an address to the nation after being sworn in by the Chief Justice, Sarath Silva.

As the nation's fifth executive president he would work to unite the whole country, Rajapakse said, echoing his campaign promise of refusing to consider the federal state that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) demands in place of separatism.

"From this moment I will work towards my goal of making a new Sri Lanka," he said in Sinhalese, stopping after every sentence to allow a translator to convey his speech in Tamil. "I will try to achieve honourable peace for all. We will discuss peace talks with the LTTE and all political parties.

"When the LTTE says they are ready to return to peace negotiations we will start talks with them immediately. We will give priority to those talks."

Promising to consult all countries, which were interested and had helped in the island's peace process, Rajapakse said, "we are people of Asia and we want to work very closely with our Asian friends".

"We will also work with the rest of the countries in the world," he said.

Rajapakse garnered 50.3 percent of the 10 million votes cast at Thursday's presidential election, leaving rival Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickremesinghe trailing with 48.4 percent of the ballots.

The new president, a socialist by political orientation, is expected to take a hawkish line with the LTTE in keeping with the demands of the principal backers of his election campaign, the ultra-nationalist JVP.

Minority Tamil voters in the northern Jaffna peninsula, most of which is LTTE control, boycotted the election en masse with election monitors decrying the Tigers for intimidating the populace.