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Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka gov't tries to keep peace talks alive: spokesman

COLOMBO, Apr 19, 2006 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The Sri Lankan government said Wednesday that it has done everything possible to make the proposed Geneva truce talks with the Tamil Tigers alive despite continued acts of violence blamed on the rebels.
"We have gone that extra mile and done everything possible despite barbaric acts of terrorism by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)," Keheliya Rambukwella, minister of policy planning and the government's defense spokesman, told reporters.

Rambukwella said, quoting official figures, that there had been 48 deaths between April 7 and April 17 due to continued attacks of claymore mines and other attacks against security forces by the LTTE rebels.

"We have offered them air transport when they rejected last Saturday's sea movement," Rambukwella said, referring to a decision by the rebels not to send their eastern cadres to the north by Sri Lanka Navy escorted ships.

The Tigers claimed that their eastern cadres moving to the north to meet the leadership was important for them to attend the Geneva talks scheduled for April 24-25.

The Tigers have so far not responded to the government's offer of a private airliner for the movement nor they have said that they would not be able to attend the talks.

Rambukwella added that the government was hopeful of the rebels attending the talks and their going ahead as planned on the due dates

"This a very critical time," Rambukwella said, adding that the government would stay committed to the Norwegian backed process.

More than 64,000 people had been killed in Sri Lanka's separatist armed conflict until February 2002 when the Norwegian brokered a ceasefire agreement between the two sides.

Norway's special peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer arrived in the island Tuesday afternoon in a bid to end an impasse on the proposed talks in Geneva between the government and the LTTE.