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Lankan president, PM agree to meet

Reuters, Colombo
Sri Lanka's prime minister has accepted an invitation to meet the president today, but neither appears ready for compromise in a power struggle that threatens efforts to restart peace talks with Tamil rebels.
Cabinet spokesman G.L. Peiris said Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will hold talks with President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who sacked three cabinet ministers and suspended parliament last week because she felt the prime minister was making too many concessions to the rebels.
Wickremesinghe was in Washington at the time.
But Peiris indicated that Wickremesinghe was unlikely to support the president's call for a national unity government.
"The prime minister believes his main task is the fragility of this (peace) process and practical ways of mitigating that damage," Peiris told a news conference yesterday.
"That is the main matter he would like to discuss with her excellency, the president," he said.
"The prime minister would like to emphasize that he enjoys the support of 130 members of parliament and there is no need whatsoever in regard to change," he said of the 225-seat legislature.
News of the meeting came as two envoys from peace broker Norway arrived for discussions aimed at getting the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) back to the negotiating table.
Their visit has been overshadowed by the political turmoil.
Wednesday's meeting will be the first between the president and prime minister -- who are elected separately -- since the crisis erupted last week when Kumaratunga sacked the defense, interior and media ministers and suspended parliament until November 19.
Her office said the meeting was "to discuss the current political situation" and to get Wickremesinghe's views "on her call for a Grand Alliance of all national and patriotic forces, with the objective of forming a Government of National Reconstruction and Reconciliation."
Peiris said Monday that Wickremesinghe would ask the president to take over the peace process if she did not restore the ministries.
With Wickremesinghe confident of his popular support and of keeping his majority in parliament, he will be under pressure from his own party to stand firm in the contest of wills with the president.
For Kumaratunga, who has vast powers under the constitution, giving back the ministries would be an admission of weakness after last week's power grab, but agreeing to handle the peace process would alienate her from her left-wing supporters