COLOMBO, Sept. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has informed UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that she would not attend the 58th sessions of the general assembly or the special UN conference on AIDS, her office said on Tuesday.

　　"I now regret very much to inform you that I will not be able to attend this meeting, due to the situation at home which causes several issues of concern to the country and the government," Kumaratunga said in her letter to Annan.

　　She also stated that the invitation dated July 23 had not been received by her and added that the invitation of July 31, sent to her by the Sri Lanka Permanent Representative and the Foreign Ministry, was received by her only on August 15.

　　However, the president said that she was looking forward to welcoming Annan to Sri Lanka next month.

　　The real reason for Kumaratunga's pullout of race for the UN general assembly is that her arch political rival Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe intends to attend it.

　　Kumaratunga had initially accepted the official invitation for the UN AIDS conference which is to be followed by the UN general assembly.

　　"President Kumaratunga as Head of State and Head of Government received priority over the Prime Minister as leader of the Parliamentary majority," the President's Office said in a statement.

　　Kumaratunga has been in an uneasy cohabitation government with Wickremesinghe when her People's Alliance lost the December parliamentary elections to Wickremesinghe's United National Party.

　　Kumaratunga, who was elected separately from the government, will stay in office until 2005.

　　She is highly critical of Wickremesinghe government's handling of the ongoing Norwegian-brokered peace process and repeatedly complained that the government is conceding too much to the Tamil Tiger rebels. Enditem