The TNA said it would continue to campaign for Tamil rights. "If the Sri Lankan state continues its present style of governance without due regard to the rights of the Tamil-speaking peoples, [we] will launch a peaceful, non-violent campaign of civil disobedience on the Gandhian model," the party said, in its manifesto for forthcoming parliamentary elections on 8 April.

Analysts said the TNA was adjusting to the political reality of the end of the civil war, and its current political weakness.

Last year the Sri Lankan military mounted a series of internationally controversial offensives which drove guerrillas from the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam from their enclaves in the north of the country. The military victory contributed to the re-election of Sri Lanka's president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, in January.

Charu Lata Hogg, of Chatham House, said: "[The announcement] was expected in terms of the TNA moving towards the mainstream. Pragmatism dictates that they drop [the demand for statehood]. There's no internal constituency or international pressure for it."

Alan Keenan, Sri Lanka expert of the International Crisis Group, said: "The positive side is that they are looking to find space within the political system. However they are still many miles away from what [Rajapaksa] has said he would consider."

The coming parliamentary elections are likely to be an opportunity for Rajapaksa to consolidate his power. Aides have said the government hopes to obtain the two-thirds majority that would allow sweeping constitutional changes. Loyalists claim the reforms will streamline the government and increase minority representation. Critics fear the changes will cement an autocratic rule that threatens basic civil liberties.

The court martial of the defeated presidential candidate General Sarath Fonseka is expected to start on Tuesday. Fonseka, the former head of the Sri Lankan armed forces, is charged with participating in politics while in office and violating military procurement procedures.

Anura Dissanayake, a spokesman for the Democratic National Alliance, which is led by Fonseka, claimed the charges were politically motivated.

Despite his detention, Fonseka plans to contest the parliamentary elections.

One Sri Lankan analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the TNA switch was rooted in its current political weakness and its fear that it may lose heavily in the polls. Some Tamils are concerned that the political party will give up too much.

"The TNA cannot ask anything less than what it has asked for," said Manikkawasagara, a former government servant and a Tamil voter from the northern city of Jaffna, who was once an open supporter of the rebels."

The Tamil National Alliance, formed nine years ago, always stopped short of explicitly endorsing separatism, a demand which would have been illegal.

The Tamil Tigers agreed to a federal state in December 2002, but Norwegian-brokered talks collapsed in 2006.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/14/tamils-drop-calls-for-separate-state