Wednesday, May 10 2006 16:40 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Colombo: India would be invited to attend akey meeting of Sri Lanka's main financial backers who would take stock of their involvement in the island's faltering peace process, a top Japanese envoy said here today (May 10, 2006).

Yasushi Akashi, Japan's top peace envoy to Colombo who wrapped up four days of talks in Sri Lanka, said he was heading to New Delhi for parleys tomorrow with Indian leaders on their participation at the meeting later this month in Tokyo.

The meeting would be for soul searching to take stock of international efforts to support peace in Sri Lanka where violence has escalated in the past month when over 200 people had been killed.

India, which has banned the LTTE, would be invited to participate at the Tokyo meet, Akashi said.

"Where we are with the peace process? Where we should be going? Why there is not enough progress in the peace process? This is what we will focus on," he told reporters.

Asked what he expected India to do, Akashi said, "We can't dictate as to what India might do in Tokyo. We have totalk with each other as to what India should be doing," he said.

He discounted local media reports that the rebels snubbed him by not granting a meeting with Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran.

Akashi said the LTTE's political wing leader S P Thamilselvan made an apology for Prabhakaran's inability to attend talks with him 'under present circumstances"'and that he accepted the explanation.

"I certainly will not call it a snub. That is what some sensational journalist would want to say," he said.

"Everyone involved, including the press, should do his or her best to de-escalate this extremely dangerous climate of violence. We should not do anything to worsen the situation," he said.

Akashi condemned the April 25 suicide bombing against Army chief Sarath Fonseka and said the Tigers must take note of the concerns of the international community over such attacks.

The Japanese envoy stressed that the parties must decide to push the peace process or abandon it and the international community can only play a 'subsidiary role.'

"We cannot substitute for the parties in conflict," he said.