S Lanka says committed to talks with Tiger rebels

COLOMBO, Oct 17 (Reuters) The Sri Lankan government will retaliate against more attacks by Tamil Tiger rebels but remains committed to peace talks despite a suicide bombing that killed nearly 100 people, a top official said today.

Suspected rebels yesterday rammed an explosives-laden truck into a naval convoy near the town of Habarana, about 190 km northeast of the capital Colombo, in one of the worst suicide bombings on the troubled Indian Ocean island.

The attack deepened pessimism over talks due to be held in Geneva on October 28-29.

''No, there is no rethink. The president has reaffirmed that we will go ahead with the talks whatever,'' said Palitha Kohona, head of the government's Peace Secretariat.

''We will continue retaliating, taking action against them but we will go to the talks.'' Kohona told Reuters the atmosphere was unpleasant and expectations had to be realistic when two sides involved in a bloody, nearly quarter-century conflict were heading for negotiations.

''Don't expect the world,'' he said. ''But we hope something good will come of it.'' Hundreds of people have been killed in spiralling violence in Sri Lanka since late July, and a truce brokered in 2002 now exists only on paper.

Yesterday's attack came at the start of a week of hectic international diplomacy aimed at ending the rash of fighting between the military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Yasushi Akashi, the peace envoy of the island's chief financial donor, Japan, began talks with government leaders yesterday while Norway's special peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer was due to arrive today.

US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher is also due in Colombo this week.

TALKS DOOMED? Last week, dozens of troops and rebels were killed and hundreds wounded in one of the deadliest battles since the truce.

More than 65,000 people have been killed since 1983 when the rebels began fighting for an independent Tamil homeland.

Today, the pro-rebel Web site, www.tamilnet.com, said two girls, aged 12 months and 12 years, were killed and 15 civilians wounded when air force jets bombed Kaiveli village in rebel territory in the northeast of the island late yesterday.

But the military said fighter jets had ''pounded a Tiger terrorist base'' and completely destroyed it.

Tamilnet also said that a policeman and a soldier were killed late yesterday in a mine attack on a security patrol on the Jaffna peninsula in the north of the country.

Global concern over the violence has mounted and U.N.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan deplored the recent attacks.

He urged all sides to refrain from using force and return to the negotiating table, U N chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York late yesterday.

Annan stressed once again that a return to civil war would not resolve the conflict, Dujarric said.

Although both sides seem to be still willing to meet in Geneva, few expect the meeting to achieve much.

Asked if he expected any progress in Geneva, analyst Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu of the Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives said: ''No, that's the short answer.

''Both sides will go and make their usual speeches, accuse the other side of mala fide intentions, hark back to what they agreed the last time and how pledges have been broken,'' he said.

''I am not optimistic at all.'' REUTERS SP HT1420