A merger of the North-East is looking unlikely, the spokesperson for the Tamil National Alliance, suggested today at a press conference.

Speaking to journalists at his Jaffna office, TNA MP and spokesperson M. A. Sumanthiran, said that while the TNA's demand for a merger had not changed, he personally believed that if a merger were not to happen now, a possibility for it would be more likely to arise in the future.

"If we want the North-East to be merged, the cooperation of Muslims living in the East is important," Mr Sumanthiran said. "For this we are holding discussions with Muslim parties."

A re-merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces has been a key political demand among Tamils.

Last year, the Northern Province Chief Minister, C. V. Wigneswaran, emphasised that a North-East merger would be key to the interests of Tamil people in those areas. Otherwise he said there was a "danger of minority communities losing their identities in the long run," which the majority community appeared to want. He added that any process to erase the identities and culture of those communities is genocide. He noted that Muslim Tamil-speaking peoples could have an autonomous unit within a merged North-East province.

Mr Sumanthiran claimed however that the new constitution being drafted for Sri Lanka would bring about a solution for the Tamil people.

"It cannot be said that after the regime change nothing has happened," he said. "Many things are in progress."

Stating that people's lands were being released and a percentage of prisoners had been released, Mr Sumanthiran said the TNA were "supporting [the national unity government] in order to attain the solution we wish to achieve."