By Kelum Bandara and Yohan Perera

The government, in consultation with the National Security Council, is now taking steps to scrap the state of emergency, and the motion in this regard will be presented to Parliament soon, Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne told Parliament today.

The Prime Minister, making his remarks during the debate on the extension of the state of emergency, said that he gave a detailed account on the circumstances that led to the re-imposition of the state of emergency on August 13, 2005. He said that the emergency regulations were scaled down on May 2, 2010, a year after the end of the war.  He said though emergency regulations were still being used to provide security to nerve centres in the Colombo city, the government had taken steps to do away with the regulations immediately. The Prime Minister said some foreign forces were trying to strengthen the hands of the LTTE internationally though the organisation had been decimated in Sri Lanka. He said LTTE fronts such as the Global Tamil Forum, the Transnational Government of Tamil Ealam, the British Tamil Forum and the Tamil National Council were active outside the country. He also said in Tamil Nadu, pro-LTTE elements were trying to force the central government of India to impose economic sanctions on Sri Lanka.