Sri Lanka govt holds out hope for peace talks

COLOMBO, Apr 21 (Reuters) Sri Lanka's government today said it was exercising ''extreme restraint'' by not retaliating against a wave of attacks it blames on Tamil Tigers rebels, and held out hope peace talks could take place as planned next week.

The Tigers said yesterday they would not attend the negotiations in Geneva set for April 24-25 after wrangling over transport of their eastern commanders to their northern headquarters and over violence they blame on government forces.

''I would not like even to talk about the talks not taking place. For me, as the head of the Peace Secretariat, the talks must go ahead. They must take place,'' Palitha Kohona, head of the government's body for co-ordinating the peace process, told Reuters.

''The government has acted with extreme restraint because its commitment is to bring the LTTE to Geneva,'' he said, referring to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The talks are seen as the best hope of stemming violence in the last two weeks that has killed about 90 and salvaging a 2002 ceasefire that halted two decades of civil war over the Tiger's fight for a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka's north and east.

Tiger political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan met Norwegian envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer yesterday but said afterwards the LTTE would not come to the talks until ''normality returned'' -- a reference to killings the rebels blame on a breakaway faction they say is acting in concert with the government.

''Normality from whose perspective?'' Kohona asked.

''For us, normality means an absence of claymore mines on a regular basis, absence of grenades in civilian markets, absence of the murder of civilians,'' he said.

Today, three separate claymore mine blasts killed at least three in the northeastern district of Trincomalee. The attacks sparked ethnic clashes in which one more died.

''It's unprecedented in any peace talks around the world ...

You do not find a government bending over backwards in this fashion to bring protagonists to the peace talks when it is provoked on a daily basis,'' Kohona said.

He also denied the army or government was complicit with the eastern faction known as the Karuna group, but added the government did not have complete control over the eastern province where he operates.

''But there are huge swathes of jungle, areas that are not under the dominance of the military, and it is quite possible that some armed groups do exist here.'' Hanssen-Bauer was still in Sri Lanka trying to secure an agreement for talks and the Swedish major-general who heads the Nordic monitoring mission that oversees the truce was in the Tigers' headquarters of Kilinochchi to meet the rebels.

But Kohona said if their efforts fail, the government hoped the international community would step up pressure on the Tigers. Canada banned the group as a terrorist organisation earlier this month, and Kohona said the European Union could do the same if they stay away from talks.

''We hope all this international pressure will encourage the LTTE to come to the negotiating table,'' he said.

REUTERS OM RAI2137