Lanka rebels agree to talks on monitors' safety

COLOMBO, June 2: Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers said today they had accepted an invitation by peace broker Norway for talks in Oslo on June 8-9 regarding the security of Nordic truce monitors, but stressed they would not be peace talks.

Norway made the offer last month after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) attacked navy boats with truce monitors aboard during the worst sea battle with government forces since a 2002 ceasefire.

The rebel acceptance comes just days after the 25-nation European Union blacklisted them as a terrorist group and moved to freeze their assets.

''We have decided today that we will attend talks in Oslo, but they will only be talks about truce monitor safety and not peace talks,'' rebel media coordinator Daya Master said by telephone from the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi.

''Our team will convey our leadership's message about the EU ban to the Nordic countries and facilitators and the damage the ban will have on peace talks,'' he added. The Tiger delegation will fly to Oslo on Sunday.

The Tigers have warned the unarmed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) to stop escorting navy ships or face the consequences, drawing widespread international condemnation. Diplomats say the defiance helped spur the EU ban.

The Tigers have indefinitely pulled out of peace talks with the government after a surge in attacks and clashes with the military that some analysts fear could reignite a two-decade civil war that killed more than 64,000 people.

More than 290 soldiers, police, civilians and rebels have been killed in a rash of attacks from suicide bombings to naval clashes since February in what the truce monitors and Tigers now call a ''low-intensity war.'' 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 renegade rebel commander called Colonel Karuna to attack and kill their fighters.

The rebels' decision came as President Mahinda Rajapakse held an all party conference in Colombo at which aides said he would urge all political parties to work together to formulate a new proposal of devolution of power for ethnic Tamils.

Diplomats, who say the international community is at the end of its tether with the rebels and government alike for ignoring calls to halt escalating violence, welcomed the initiative, which came after the island's main international donors called for ''dramatic political changes'' to get the peace process moving.

REUTERS