At a United Nations press conference earlier this week, Kadirgamar without distinction closed the door to the entire range of possibilities, from an East Timor/Kosovo-style intervention to the much milder `facilitation' that even President Chandrika Kumaratunga has articulated the need for on several occasions.

However, there is a strong belief here and elsewhere that only outside assistance can help to bring the Government and the Tamil Tigers back to the negotiating table. Some are even convinced that this assistance can come only from India.

Earlier this month, former US ambassador to Sri LankaTeresita Schaffer said at a public lecture here that there was space for ``discreet, self-effacing and deniable'' mediation in the conflict.

Several countries including Britain, France, and the US, have offered their services but Sri Lanka has always maintained that it needs none, though never before as emphatically as Kadirgamar stated at the UN.

In spite of a disastrous history of negotiations with the LTTE, Tamil and some sections of the majority community want the Government to reopen talks with them. And for this, an impartial mediator is seen as a must to break down the accumulated distrust on both sides.

``There are more advantages to third party-mediated negotiations than in direct talks. A neutral, third party can persuade both sides to drop their intransigence on many matters. But Kadirgamar's statement has dashed the hopes of the Tamil community,'' said V Anandasangari of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF).

The TULF vice-president said in rejecting the constructive role a mediatorcould play in Sri Lanka, Kadirgamar had virtually put a ``full stop'' to a political settlement of the 16-year-old conflict.

Breaking a long silence, the LTTE too put out a statement lashing out at the Government for shutting out mediators.

The National Peace Council (NPC), an independent organisation here lobbying for an end to the war, has also said that the Government's view, especially on the ``facilitative aspects'' of mediation, needs to be ``rethought and reconsidered'' in view of the expensive stalemate.

Though the opposition United National Party (UNP) has yet to articulate a clear stand on foreign mediation, a prominent party member expressed puzzlement over Kadirgamar's statement.

``He's the one who got Fox (Tory British minister Liam Fox) to broker the bipartisan approach between the Government and the UNP. So it's odd for him to say now that he does not want foreign mediation,'' said Charlie Mahendran, former diplomat and UNP member.

But the tough stand adopted by Kadirgamar at the UNon intervention has gone down really well with extreme Sinhala opinion. This has triggered speculation that with elections just months away, the statement is aimed mainly at appeasing this section which has been furious with the Government for allowing the LTTE to get away with the brutal massacre of Sinhalese civilians earlier this month.

The flip side is that the Government may have lost some more ground with the minority community. ``They are antagonising the Tamils more and more. We broke history to campaign for this Government in the last election. We will not be able to do that in the coming election,'' warned Anandasangari.