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Sri Lanka calls for ``sincere'' peace talks, truce monitors meet Tamil rebels
Associated Press,
Wed January 31, 2007 09:03 EST .
DILIP GANGULY - Associated Press Writer - COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - (AP) Sri Lanka - called on Tamil rebels to engage in ``sincere'' peace talks to end bloodshed, a call that coincided with an attack on a bus carrying off-duty police that killed seven people. Sri Lanka - 's main international backers India, United States and Japan have asked the government to give priority to a negotiated settlement of the rebels' demands instead of opting for military action. But the government has in recent weeks sent in the military to take back several areas that had fallen to the rebels. Peace broker Norway's ambassador Hans Brattskar is due to meet with the Tamil Tigers' political wing leader S. P. Thamilselvan in the rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi on Thursday, embassy spokesman Tom Knappskog said. The meeting will be ``routine'' and part of an exercise to keep in touch with the opposing parties, Knappskog said. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka - Monitoring Mission chief Lars Johan Solvberg met rebel official Seevaratnam Puleedevan on Wednesday and discussed security and cooperation for the monitoring process, spokesman Thorfinnur Omarsson said. He said Puleedevan assured him the total protection and cooperation of the monitors. The government also gave the monitors a similar pledge, he added. The meeting was the first contact between the Tigers' leadership and the monitors since November. A resurgence of fighting since last year has killed thousands of civilians and fighters despite the Norway-brokered cease-fire, which now effectively exists only on paper. The Tamil rebels have been fighting since 1983 to carve out a separate homeland for the country's ethnic Tamil minority after decades of discrimination by the majority Sinhalese-dominated government. More than 68,000 people have been killed in the fighting. A European monitoring group, formally called the Sri Lanka - Monitoring Mission, was formed after the February 2002 truce.
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Published: Wed Jan 31 09:40:01 EST 2007
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