Foreign ambassadors to meet with rebel leaders in Sri Lanka
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-24 14:00

Envoys from Asia and Europe headed for Tamil rebel territory Saturday to meet with guerrilla leaders in an effort to quell growing violence that threatens to shatter the country's cease-fire, officials said.

In the latest fighting, 13 members of Sri Lanka's navy traveling in a bus were killed in an ambush on Friday. The government blamed the rebels for the attack.

The envoys _ from Japan, Britain, Norway and European Union _ represent key backers of Sri Lanka's peace process and they planned to meet with rebels' political leader, S. P. Thamilselvan in the northern guerrilla stronghold of Kilinochchi, the pro-rebel Web site, TamilNet said.

Sri Lankan government soldiers patrol a street in Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka, December 20, 2005.[Reuters]

In Friday's attack, assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades and triggered a land mine in an ambush on about 30 sailors traveling by road toward their base in Mannar district, 220 kilometers (135 miles) north of the capital, Colombo, said navy spokesman Cmdr. Jayantha Perera. Two sailors were wounded, he said.

Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake and Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera met with ambassadors from the three nations and the EU after the attack and urged them to take steps to ensure the rebels "desist from further escalating the violence in the north and east," a government statement said.

But the rebels have denied involvement in the attack.

"The ... Tigers were not involved in any activity that breaches the cease-fire agreement," rebel spokesman Daya Master told The Associated Press by telephone from Kilinochchi. "There is no connection whatsoever between us and this attack."

Hagrup Haukland, a Norwegian who heads the 60-member European team monitoring the Sri Lankan truce, said the latest violence has endangered the peace deal.

"The cease-fire agreement is in jeopardy, absolutely," Haukland told reporters.

"The situation is alarming," said Haukland, adding that he and some other monitors were canceling their Christmas leave. "There is a lot of concern what will happen," he said, suggesting that the two sides meet.

Violence has escalated in Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil-majority northeast since rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran threatened to resume his struggle for an independent Tamil homeland if the government fails to address Tamils' grievances.

This month alone, at least 33 government security personnel, including the sailors, were killed and many more injured in attacks blamed on the rebels.

The Tamil Tigers started fighting in 1983 for a separate Tamil homeland in the island nation's north and east, claiming discrimination by the majority Sinhalese. The conflict killed about 65,000 people.