ReliefWeb

COLOMBO, Jun 14, 2005 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Sri Lanka's international donor community has given Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga a morale booster in her controversial plan to set up a joint relief deal with the Tamil Tigers for tsunami victims.

The US embassy in Colombo in a release said here Tuesday that donors including Japan, the United States and the European Union had urged the Sri Lankan government to implement a joint mechanism with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels.

The donor community met in Washington D.C. on Monday to review Sri Lanka's post-tsunami reconstruction effort.

"The co-chairs support the commitment by the president, her government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to rapidly implement the structure to administer tsunami assistance in the north and east," the release said.

This has come in as a timely boost for the Sri Lankan president who is grappling with opposition from her own coalition party the JVP (the People's Liberation Front) and from nationalist parties including the powerful Buddhist clergy.

The JVP last week issued a June 16 ultimatum to Kumaratunga to give up the plan.

The JVP with 39 seats in the 225-member parliament can break the Kumaratunga government.