Lankan president invites Tigers to talks abroad

Government spokesman Nimal Siripala de Silva told reporters that Colombo no longer insists that any future negotiations be conducted within the island.

New Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has invited the rebel Tamil Tigers to crunch talks amid escalating violence, which has raised fears of a return to Civil war, the government said yesterday.

"The President and the United National Party (UNP) have agreed to resume talks with the LTTE," de Silva told reporters, referring to the main opposition party and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

"The President has informed the UNP delegation that he has invited the LTTE for talks with the government," de Silva said after a cabinet meeting.

"He sent a letter to the LTTE through Sri Lanka's Peace Secretariat and the Norwegian facilitators," he added. "The government is waiting for a response from the LTTE. We expect a positive response."

But Rajapakse's outright rejection of the Tigers' demand for an ethnic homeland in the north and east has been followed by a series of attacks on the military by suspected rebels, and many ordinary Sri Lankans fear a return to civil war.

The LTTE have threatened to resume their two-decade struggle next year unless Colombo comes up with a viable power-sharing blueprint, saying this is its last chance to avert a return to a war in which more than 64,000 people have been killed.

The government was willing to talk to the Tigers in an Asian country, rowing back on the previous government's refusal to hold talks outside Sri Lanka, de Silva said.

"First we have to break the ice," he said.

The rebels were not available for comment on Rajapakse's invitation because telephone lines to north were either down or blocked by the military.

But the Tigers said on Tuesday they had not decided whether to accept a Japanese offer to host talks in Tokyo.

Earlier government spokesman Nimal Siripala de Silva told reporters that Norway had agreed to remain in the role of peace maker even though President Mahinda Rajapakse won the November 17 election on a promise to overhaul the Norwegian-backed peace process.

Norway's foreign minister told his Sri Lankan counterpart Thursday that Oslo would continue trying to broker peace in the island's long-running ethnic conflict, but only under strict conditions.