Norway asks Sri Lanka, rebels Do you stand by truce?

COLOMBO, June 9 (Reuters) Peace broker Norway has asked Sri Lanka's government and Tamil Tigers if they still honour a ceasefire that halted a civil war after the rebels stymied talks and plunged a Nordic truce monitoring mission into crisis.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) blindsided the Norwegian government on Thursday by refusing to meet their government foes for talks in Oslo about the safety of truce monitors.

They demanded the withdrawal of monitors from the European Union countries, which have blacklisted the rebels as terrorists.

A withdrawal of monitors would reduce the mission by two-thirds to just 20 people from non-EU members Norway and Iceland, which analysts say would make it impossible for them to effectively monitor rising attacks that threaten to reignite war.

Norway says it would take six months to replace 37 monitors from EU member states Sweden, Denmark and Finland and would mean removing current chief monitor Swedish Major General Ulf Henricsson.

''The Royal Norwegian government have deemed it necessary to take the unprecedented step of requesting both parties, through letters to President Mahinda Rajapakse and LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, to provide responses to five critical questions,'' Norway said in a statement issued overnight.

''Will the parties stand committed to the ceasefire agreement?'' it asks. ''Do the parties want the continued existence and operation of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission as coordinated, facilitated and led by the Royal Norwegian government?'' Norway has also asked if both sides can give security guarantees for monitors, who have had close shaves during clashes between the military and the Tigers, and whether both sides will amend the terms of the truce to allow other countries to fill the vacant slots.

The letter comes amid enormous frustration from the island's main donors and the international community, as violence rises in a country already ravaged by two decades of war that killed more than 64,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more.

More than 400 people rebels have been killed since early April in what analysts say appears to be rising number of tit-for-tat attacks between foes poles apart over the Tigers' demands for a separate homeland in the island's north and east.

Pro-rebel Web site www.tamilnet.com said the Tigers, who are fixated on hierarchy, had refused to meet the government delegation because it contained no Sri Lankan ministers.

''After the EU ban took place, it was quite clear as far as the monitoring mission was concerned that it should not affect our mission at all since the monitors are working as individuals and not representing their countries,'' SLMM spokeswoman Helen Olafsdottir told Reuters.

''The monitors have been working since the EU ban took place and head of mission has been to meetings up in (the rebel stronghold of) Kilinochchi and has been received by the LTTE,'' she added. ''The operational realities have not changed.

REUTERS CH PC1013