The Sri Lankan government said Wednesday that it has accepted an
invitation by the Norwegian peace facilitators to attend a meeting
next week in the Norwegian capital of Oslo to discuss the role of
the international truce monitoring group.
"The government would like to respond positively to the request
made by the Norwegian facilitators," the government said in Colombo
in a statement.
Norwegian special envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer on Saturday announced
that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government
had been invited to meet in Norway on June 8-9 to discuss the
issues concerning the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and the
safety of its members while carrying out monitoring.
The SLMM, a 60-member group consisting of personnel from
Nordiccountries on May 11 accused the LTTE of putting its members
at risk in attacking a Sri Lankan troop carrier vessel.
Both the government and the rebels have shown displeasure with
the work of the SLMM and both sides have taken exception to some of
the statements made by the mission.
The government delegation to the Oslo meeting is to be headed by
Palitha Kohona, the secretary general of the Secretariat for
Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP).
The rebels, according to sources, are still considering its
participation in Oslo talks after the European Union made a
decision to ban the group.
Fighting breaks out in Sri Lanka's north
A fighting between the Sri Lankan Army and the Tamil Tigers
broke out Wednesday morning in the island country's northern Jaffna
peninsula amid escalating violence, the Army said in a
statement.
The Army said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels
started firing mortars and small arms towards the troops at the
Forward Defense Line (FDL) at Nagarkovil, Jaffna, forcing
government troops to retaliate with small arms and mortars.
"Terrorists firing lasted for about 45 minutes and terrorists in
the opposite FDL afterwards retreated in the face of retaliatory
fire, directed by the security forces," said the statement, adding
that there were no injuries in the Army during the fighting.
The Army also denied a pro-LTTE 'TamilNet' website report that
the actual position of the FDL at Nagarkovil has been distorted to
the advantage of the LTTE.
The TamilNet report said that "LTTE has advanced significant
distance" towards the Army's FDL and that the Army "has been forced
to move back from their FDLs."
The fighting occurred among the country's escalating violence
that has claimed over 500 lives since the beginning of December
last year.
The upsurge in violence has threatened the ongoing Norwegian
backed ceasefire between the government and the LTTE.
(Xinhua News Agency June 1, 2006)
