The Sri Lankan Army has taken the Elephant Pass and now controls the land routes leading into the Jaffna Peninsula- and the Tamil Tigers are now left with one operational base on the east coast of the Island in Mullaitivu.
With military defeat looking near, the options are narrowing for the Tamil Tigers. I think the BBC gets it right by concluding that even if military victory is achieved on the battlefield, the demands for a separate Tamil state are unlikely to go away anytime soon. And that means that the Sinhalese have to break the cycle of ethnic outbidding and actually address this situation- a settlement is possible- even a just settlement is possible, but in order to do that, the Sinhalese have to be willing to engage and compromise- and I don't think that the Sinhalese nationalists are going to want to even consider that after this. They're going to think that they're in a better position to dictate terms to the Tamils rather than forge a settlement.
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