July 31, Colombo: Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa is scheduled to meet Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremasinghe for extensive talks. The discussion will be held in the President's official residence Temple Trees on Tuesday, August 03.

Ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and opposition United National Party (UNP) officials are also to participate in this discussion.

The discussion is to focus on the bi-party consensus regarding constitutional reforms. The parties are to come to a final decision regarding the local government electoral reforms as well.

A UNP parliamentary group headed by Wickremasinghe met President Rajapaksa earlier this month to discuss the constitutional amendments that are to be brought soon.

The President and the UNP leaders in the meeting agreed in principle to the need to abolish the Executive Presidency and create an Executive Prime Minister post that will be responsible to parliament.

UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake said the UNP was ready to support the constitutional amendments if they were based on abolishing the Executive Presidency, implementing the 17th amendment, and are beneficial to the country.