The government of Japan is to provide Sri Lanka with disaster prevention technical knowhow, a visiting Japanese minister said here Tuesday.

Shuzen Tanigawa, Senior Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, told reporters that the Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga had requested Japanese government to provide Sri Lanka with a Tsunami early warning system during his talks here.

"It is not difficult to give Sri Lanka technology," Tanigawa said, adding that Japan has a disaster prevention system for the Indian ocean region and it would be passed on to the Sri Lankan authorities.

Tanigawa said Japan had already given Sri Lanka 500 million US dollars since the Dec. 26 tsunami tragedy and would also call on other nations to jointly apply moratorium on Sri Lanka's public debt services.

Tanigawa said the Tsunami disaster had opened up a new opportunity for the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tiger rebels to revive the stalled peace talks.

Japan hosted a special donor conference on the Sri Lankan peace process in June 2003 in Tokyo.

Tanigawa however ruled out any direct assistance to the LTTE towards reconstruction of the devastated areas in the north and east provinces.

"In principle the assistance must go through the government of Sri Lanka," Tanigawa said.