"Its perpetrators have achieved nothing other than to cause further suffering among the people of Sri Lanka. Only a political solution, not continued violence, offers the way forward to end the country's conflict."
A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber killed Sri Lanka's highways minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle as he opened a marathon Sunday in the town of Weliveriya north of the capital.
The attack also killed 13 others and wounded nearly 100, police and officials said.
Fernandopulle was the second minister to be killed this year.
Nation building minister D.M. Dassanayake was killed in a roadside bomb attack in the same district earlier this year.
The Tigers are trying to hit back at the government through bombings after suffering setbacks at the hands of the military in the north and east.
The military went