Had the LTTE accepted even to explore a political solution, would things have been different today?

Rajapakse has not come up with any political solution. In my opinion, he has been staging a big drama in regard to finding a political solution because he was under pressure from the international community and India. To come up with an acceptable political solution, I do not think Rajapakse genuinely has a clear conception of what sort of political problem this is

Even now?

Yes, even now! He thinks he can fudge and hoist some solution on the Tamil people. In fact, Prabhakaran -- in the course of the first martyrs day speech after Rajapakse took over as President in November 2006 -- had called upon Rajapakse to come up with a political solution and put it on the table.

(Raising his voice) Where is this proposal that he wanted you to put forward. If that had come up and been put in public, we would have prevailed upon the LTTE not to continue with the armed struggle. A solution, which the Tamil people find acceptable, workable, durable and the international community is ready to back. So that has not happened.