Surrender and renounce terrorism - UN Security council to LTTE

UN Security Council today asked the Tamil Tigers to immediately surrender, renounce terrorism and join the political process through dialogue to put an end to the decades old ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.

"We demand that the LTTE immediately lay down arms, renounce terrorism, allow a UN assisted evacuation of the remaining civilians in the conflict area, and join the political process through dialogue," UNSC President Claude Heller, who is also Mexican Ambassador, told reporters today after a meeting convened at the request of France.

The meeting of the 15-member council discussed the current crisis in Sri Lanka in the wake of the human rights groups raising concerns over the deteriorating humanitarian condition in the conflict zone in the island nation and avoid the possibility of "blood bath" in terms of an UN official.

Heller's remarks expresses the sentiments of the Security Council members and does not hold any official clout unlike in the case of a Presidential Statement; on which there was an apparent differences among the five veto-wielding members of the council - the US, France, Britain, China and Russia.