Diplomats in new push for peace in Lanka

Sri Lankan army soldiers fire artillery shells at LTTE positions in this picture taken on August 20 at an undisclosed location on the Jaffna Peninsula, some 400kms north of Colombo. Sri Lankan troops backed by artillery and fighter jets are resisting a Tamil Tiger rebel advance on the Jaffna peninsula amid moves to lift a nine-day siege of the embattled region. PHOTO: AFP

Diplomats from the United States, the European Union, Norway and Japan met Rajapakse at his official residence to discuss the worsening security situation in the island's embattled northeast, officials said.

"The discussions focused on the peace process and the current security situation in Jaffna and elsewhere in the northeast," an official in Rajapakse's office said.

Details of the talks were not immediately known but officials said the diplomats expressed growing concern at the violence between troops and Tamil Tiger rebels, which has claimed over 1,500 lives since December.

Nordic truce monitors have said the Norwegian-arranged 2002 truce now exists on paper only. The two sides have traded artillery fire across a de facto front line in the northern peninsula of Jaffna for the past 10 days.

The backers have been pressing for an immediate halt to the bloodshed and a resumption of talks, which were put on hold in April 2003 by the Tiger guerrillas.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in Sri Lanka's Tamil separatist conflict in the past three decades.

Meanwhile, a former Norwegian army chief was named Monday as the new head monitor of Sri Lanka's crumbling ceasefire after Tamil Tiger rebels demanded European Union members quit the team.

Major General Lars Solvberg will take charge of the 30-strong group of Icelandic and Norwegian monitors, said Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) spokesman Thorfinnur Omarsson.

"He is due to come for a visit before September 1," he said.