Lanka asks Norway to save peace move amid war fear

The new government of President Mahinda Rajapakse -- who had earlier promised to overhaul the peace bid and review the role of the Norwegians -- made a U-turn and asked Oslo to stay on.

The president told Norwegian ambassador Hans Brattskar to keep up the effort even though two key government allies had earlier insisted that Norway should be expelled from the faltering peace process.

"President Rajapakse invited the Royal Norwegian government to continue its role as facilitator to the peace process in Sri Lanka," a government statement said.

Norway reacted cautiously and said it would continue its efforts under unspecified conditions.

"Our initial reaction is that it is positive that we have been asked to continue our work. This is a vote of confidence," said Erik Solheim, Norway's minister of international development who has been mediating for more than five years.

"But we want to make sure we agree with the government as well as with the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) on the conditions before we accept to take on that role again," he told AFP in Oslo.

Rajapakse also met envoys of the "co-chairs" -- the United States, the European Union, Japan and Norway -- who are leading efforts to raise money in support of peace.

"The president met with the four co-chairs and briefed them on his ongoing consultations and preparatory work for the continuation of the peace process," the statement said.

There was no immediate reaction from the LTTE, which had earlier warned against any unilateral action on the peace initiative.

The government separately appealed for foreign help to salvage the troubled ceasefire by mounting pressure on the Tigers who have been blamed for the latest violence.

The army, navy and air force chiefs held emergency talks with field commanders in the northern peninsula of Jaffna where 17 soldiers have died since Saturday, officials said.

Another 11 people have been killed in the island's east while a powerful explosion Wednesday killed one and injured seven in the northern town of Vavuniya, police said.

"The service commanders are taking a closer look at the defences in the area and want to change some of the tactics," a top military official in the north said when contacted by telephone.

While senior commanders visited Jaffna, suspected Tiger rebels lobbed a grenade at a police vehicle on Tuesday night, officials said, adding that the passengers escaped unhurt.

The Norwegian-led truce monitoring mission sought to play down the violence and echoed the Colombo government's call for international pressure to help maintain the ceasefire in force since February 2002.