Bitter Sri Lankan parties likely to pledge more talks

GENEVA, Oct 29 (Reuters) Crunch talks between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels aimed at halting renewed civil war are widely expected to end today with little more than a pledge for further negotiations.

The two sides, whose ethnic conflict has killed more than 65,000 people since 1983, met yesterday in Geneva for their first face-to-face meeting in eight months amid a resurgence of violence on the island of 20 million people.

But as talks entered a second and final day today, rebels killed two soldiers in army-held northern Jaffna peninsula, the military said, the latest of hundreds of killings to plague Sri Lanka despite a tattered 2002 ceasefire.

''We are looking for continuation of dialogue,'' government negotiator Palitha Kohona told Reuters from Geneva, just before the second day of talks started.

Around 1,000 people have been killed since July over demands from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east, where the rebels already run a de facto state.

The international community has called on both parties to halt attacks and human rights abuses from the latest surge in violence, which has displaced thousands of Sri Lankans from their homes.

The LTTE has threatened to shun future talks if Colombo does not agree to open the main highway to the Jaffna peninsula, whose closure in August due to fighting has resulted in more isolation and hardship for local residents.

''We took up the humanitarian crisis in Jaffna as the urgent priority issue ... But the Sri Lankan government was not prepared to relieve the population from the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe,'' S P Thamilselvan, chief LTTE negotiator, was quoted as saying on pro-rebel Web site.

He was referring to the first day of talks, which he had earlier said had made no discernible progress, but added his delegation would return to the table today.

STICKING POINT The government accused the Tigers, one of the most ferocious guerrilla armies in the world, of indulging in an ''exercise in cynicism'' by focusing on the highway issue.

''We had asked them for assurances of safe passage to ships (to Jaffna) which they have refused to give,'' Kohona, who heads the government's peace secretariat, said.

''They are refusing to endorse the most effective, quickest and cheapest means of providing supplies.'' But Kohona did not say whether Colombo would directly address the highway issue with the Tigers in today's talks.

''We hope it will not become a sticking point,'' he said.

Sri Lanka officials say the highway to Jaffna was unsafe because of LTTE artillery attacks, and stressed it wanted to focus instead on wider issues such as democracy, development and human rights in the restive north and east.

The government is sending supplies to the Jaffna region by ship and aircraft, but some residents and Tamil politicians have reported serious food and fuel shortages.

Both sides spent much of yesterday's talks trading accusations over who was to blame for the hostilities.

International aid agencies have called upon both parties to put aside their differences and focus on the civilians caught up in the conflict areas in the north and east.

''There needs to be free movement of supplies for the civilian population, and all parties in the conflict need to cooperate to ensure the civilian population does not suffer,'' UNICEF's mission head in Sri Lanka, Joanna Van Gerpen, said.

''Not enough food is moving. It is an extremely vulnerable situation,'' she said.

The Sri Lankan military said two guerrillas were killed and two wounded by police in separate incidents late yesterday in the east after they tried to attack policemen.

REUTERS SP MIR BST1356