Lanka rebels mull talks on truce monitor safety

Colombo, May 27: Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers today said they were considering a new offer by peace broker Norway for crunch talks in Oslo regarding the security of Nordic truce monitors, but stressed they would not be peace talks.

The offer by visiting Norwegian special peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer comes after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) attacked navy boats with truce monitors aboard earlier this month during the worst sea battle since a 2002 ceasefire.

The Tigers have warned the unarmed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) to stop escorting Navy ships or face the consequences. The move has drawn widespread international condemnation.

''Norway has invited us to attend a meeting on June 8-9 in Oslo to discuss the operations and security of the SLMM,'' rebel media coordinator Daya Master told Reuters after Hanssen-Bauer met the Tigers' political arm in their northern stronghold of Kilinochchi.

''Our leadership is considering the invitation,'' he added.

''These would not be peace talks.'' The Tigers have pulled out of peace talks indefinitely after a surge in attacks and clashes with the military that some analysts fear could reignite a two-decade civil war.

Norwegian International Development Minister Erik Solheim, who brokered the 2002 ceasefire and oversees mediation between government and Tigers, said on Friday he feared Sri Lanka could slide deeper into violence unless both sides make concessions.

More than 270 soldiers, police, civilians and rebels have been killed in a rash of attacks from suicide bombings to naval clashes since February in what the tuce monitors and Tigers now call a ''low-intensity war.'' ''We are worried, no doubt. We are worried that this will continue or even grow worse,'' Solheim told Reuters in an interview during a brief visit to the island yesterday.

The Tigers who want recognition for the de facto state they run in the island's north and east as a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils accuse the military of helping a band of former comrades led by a renegade rebel commander called Colonel Karuna to attack and kill their fighters.

The Tigers have warned the government that continued attacks could restart a conflict that killed more than 64,000 people on both sides and displaced hundreds of thousands more.

The government denies any involvement with the Karuna faction and says it can find no gun-toting fighters in its territory to disarm.

But analysts, truce monitors and the international community are sceptical.

REUTERS