Peace brokers meet with Tamil Tiger rebels
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-08 13:47

European peace brokers met with Tamil Tiger rebels in northern Sri Lanka on Thursday ahead of crucial talks between the government and the guerrillas aimed at preventing the collapse of a fragile cease-fire, AP reported.

Hagrup Haukland, who heads a team of Norwegian truce-monitors, and Oddvar Laegreid, a senior diplomat from Norway's embassy in Colombo, left Wednesday morning for the rebel stronghold town of Kilinochchi for talks with the Tamil Tigers' political chief, S.P. Thamilselvan, embassy spokeswoman Kjersti Tromsdal said.

"The proposed cease-fire talks and security issues will be discussed," Tromsdal said, without elaborating.

Rebel officials in Kilinochchi later said the Norwegians had arrived and the meeting had begun.

Norway brokered the cease-fire signed by the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tigers in February 2002, halting an ethnic conflict that lasted nearly two decades and killed some 65,000 people.

But subsequent peace talks broke down a year later over rebel demands for greater autonomy in areas they control in northern and eastern Sri Lanka.

Violence has increased sharply in recent months in the northeast, threatening the already shaky cease-fire. The Tamil Tigers agreed to talks to try to salvage the truce after the government blamed them for the August 12 assassination of Sri Lanka's foreign minister, which pushed tensions near to the breaking point.

The government has insisted that any talks with the rebels must be held in Sri Lanka, and has rejected a rebel proposal to meet in Kilinochchi. The rebels, citing security reasons, also suggested Oslo as a venue, but the government said the Tamil Tigers would use any foreign venue to further their separatist campaign.

In search of a compromise, Norway suggested Wednesday that talks could be held at Sri Lanka's international airport. A 2001 rebel suicide bomb attack at the airport killed 12 people and destroyed 12 military and passenger aircraft.

The government quickly accepted the airport as a possible venue, but the rebels have yet to respond.

The Tamil Tigers began fighting in 1983 to create a separate homeland for Tamils in the north and east, claiming discrimination by the majority Sinhalese.

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