Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, elected the new president of Sri Lanka by a slim margin, said Friday he wanted to hold face-to-face peace talks with the secretive leader of the rebel Tamil Tigers in an effort to end two decades of civil war.

Throughout the campaign, Rajapakse took a hard line on the rebels, and his victory in Thursday's vote clearly was aided by a Tiger boycott that kept thousands of minority Tamils, who overwhelmingly supported his dovish opponent, away from the polls.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Rajapakse said he wanted to hold talks with Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

It is a pledge that Rajapakse made throughout the campaign, but one that may be easier said than done — Prabhakaran rarely sees anyone outside a tight inner circle and makes only a single public appearance a year on Heroes' Day, a Tiger holiday honoring guerillas killed in the civil war.

Still, asked about his plans for Sri Lanka's stalled peace process, Rajapakse said: "I am ready to talk to the (Tigers), and I am ready to meet Prabhakaran."

Soon after unofficial results became public, opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe's campaign demanded re-votes in key northern districts where many Tamils did not vote, said party secretary N. K. Weeragoda. However, party officials later said the request had been rejected.

Rajapakse received 50 percent of the vote, compared with 48 percent for Wickremesinghe, election officials said.

"I will bring about an honorable peace to the country respecting all communities," Rajapakse said after being declared the winner.

The Prime Minister's Office appealed to the Sri Lankan people "to behave peacefully and celebrate the victory without harming opponents."

Balloting was smooth Thursday in western and southern parts of the island nation, and overall turnout was 75 percent, election officials said.

But in the north and east — territory of the feared rebels — grenade attacks, roadblocks and intimidation kept many Tamils from voting. Others heeded a boycott called by pro-rebel groups, which complained that neither of the main candidates would help them win a Tamil homeland in northeastern Sri Lanka.

The Tamils make up just under 20 percent of Sri Lanka's 19 million people but were potential kingmakers in the tightly contested election.

Wickremesinghe's softer line on peace talks with the rebels won him wide support among Tamils, a largely Hindu minority. He had signed a cease-fire with the rebels in 2002 as prime minister and had promised to strike a peace deal by granting Tamils a degree of autonomy.

Rajapakse's election as Sri Lanka's fifth president was "a setback for the peace process as you have a very polarized society," Wickremesinghe told reporters. "There will be a lot of question marks and uncertainty."

Officials said roadblocks and intimidation kept most of the 200,000 Tamils living in rebel territory from voting, and that many of the more than 2 million Tamils in government areas also stayed away from the polls.

Turnout was less than 1 percent in and around the northern Tamil city of Jaffna — the lowest ever in any of the Indian Ocean country's 22 districts.

That clearly helped Rajapakse, who turned 60 Friday.

From the campaign's outset, Rajapakse promised peace but pledged to take a tough line on the rebels, saying he would never allow the establishment of an autonomous Tamil homeland in the northeast or share $2 billion in tsunami aid with the insurgents. He has said the tsunami relief effort should be run by the government.

The Dec. 26 tsunami killed at least 31,000 people in Sri Lanka and swept away the homes or livelihoods of 1 million others. The Tigers want to run relief efforts in their territory and have repeatedly demanded access to some of the promised tsunami aid.

The Tigers took up arms in 1983 over discrimination against Tamils by the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese majority. Nearly 65,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

The 2002 cease-fire ended major fighting, but peace talks stalled in disagreement over the Tigers' demands for broad autonomy, and clashes — especially between the Tigers and a breakaway faction — have intensified.

(Chinadaily.com via agencies November 19, 2005)