Sri Lanka's ruling party and the opposition agreed Monday to work together towards a political settlement to the island's decades-old Tamil separatist conflict which has claimed over 60,000 lives.
President Mahinda Rajapakse said Monday's agreement was a major boost to the island's peace prospects and could provide a solid backdrop for negotiations with Tamil Tiger rebels at the weekend in Geneva.
"What we have today is a significant political development that has placed the country closer to peace than at any other time," he told AFP after his Sri Lanka Freedom Party signed a deal with the main opposition.
Tamil Tiger rebels had previously argued that the government could not get the two-thirds parliamentary majority to deliver on constitutional reforms that would devolve power and put an end to the bloodshed.
The president's party forms a minority government and needs opposition support to approve legislation on any power-sharing deals with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
But Monday's deal changed the political equation, Rajapakse said.
"We have now demonstrated that there is a consensus in the (Sinhalese-majority) south, unlike in the past when the two main parties were bitterly divided," he said.
The opposition United National Party's (UNP) leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said his party had shed its differences with the president to support a political settlement to the ethnic conflict.
"We will have differences on other issues, but when it comes to the national question, we will work together," Wickremesinghe said, though he warned results from the new partnership would not be immediate.
"It will not happen in a night. It will not happen in a day or even a year," Wickremesinghe said.
The three-page agreement has provisions for the two parties to share power, but details are to be worked out later with the initial focus being on working together to end ethnic bloodshed.
"The UNP reiterates its commitment to extend support to the government in the pursuit of a negotiated settlement to the on-going conflict while opposing terrorism in all its manifestations and upholding human rights," the agreement said.
Rajapakse, who came to power in November by defeating Wickremesinghe, had previously invited his other two key backers, the Marxist JVP and the all-monks National Heritage Party to join the government.
However, both oppose any concessions to the Tigers and are strongly against the Norwegian-backed peace initiatives, and have refused the president's invitation.
Under growing international pressure, government negotiators are expected to begin two days of talks Saturday with the LTTE in Geneva, after previous meetings failed to push the process forward.
But the prospects of resurrecting Sri Lanka's 2002 cease-fire have dimmed since the recent outbreak of violence that has killed more than 2,300 people since December.
Hundreds of mostly government soldiers died earlier this month when the Tigers repulsed a major attack in the northern Jaffna peninsula.
A week later, about 250 people were killed in suicide bombings and other violence throughout the island, including a rebel attack on the southern port city of Galle.
The Tigers warned at the weekend they would unleash their bloody campaign island-wide if violence against Tamil areas continued, while the government blamed the rebels for more attacks overnight, including the shooting of a Hindu cleric.
The LTTE took up arms in 1972 to demand a separate state for the island's Tamil minority in this majority Sinhalese island of 19.5 million people.