Ranil Wickremesinghe, the newly installed Sri Lankan prime minister, has been in a tense struggle to form a government of national consensus.
His most important priority now is to solve the island's two-decade-old ethnic conflict between the Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority, which has been demanding a separate homeland in the north and eastern parts of the country.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), under its ruthless leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, represents one high-profile segment of the minority community and has been waging a bloody battle with the government forces. Tens of thousands have perished in the war.