SRI LANKA: European truce monitors yesterday warned that Sri Lanka's return to civil war may be imminent unless the government and Tamil Tiger rebels resumed peace talks and swiftly initiated measures to end proliferating violence across the island's restive northeast.
Norwegian peace envoy Erik Solheim said there was "no time to lose", a day after 11 soldiers died in a landmine attack in northern Sri Lanka.
This brings the number of military personnel killed this month in the turbulent region to nearly 45.
The government has accused the rebels of carrying out the attacks, but the Tigers deny involvement.
In turn, the Sri Lankan army has claimed killing seven Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE guerrillas during the same period.
Officials in the state capital Colombo said the rising violence seriously threatened the 2002 Norway-brokered ceasefire, which halted nearly two decades of bloodshed in a civil war that has cost 65,000 lives.
The LTTE has fought the government since 1983, demanding a separate state in the north and east of the island republic for ethnic minority Tamils alleging discrimination by majority Sinhalese.
They maintain that the Tamils can only prosper away from Sinhalese domination.
The Tigers withdrew from peace talks in 2003, demanding wider autonomy for the Tamil-majority northeast region.
However, an uneasy calm prevailed without any major outbreak of violence until recently.
"If this trend of violence is allowed to continue, war may not be far away," Hagrup Haukland, chief of a group of truce monitors drawn from five Nordic countries, said in a statement.
"It is now imperative that the parties join hands to arrest the violence prevailing in the north and east."
Mr Haukland said truce monitors from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland were also at risk, operating amid violence and being "frequently hampered, even threatened".
Last month LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran issued an ultimatum to the country's newly elected president, Mahinda Rajapakse, to come up with a political settlement within the next year or face an "intensified struggle for self-determination".
Mr Rajapakse responded by offering to hold talks with the Tigers anywhere in Asia, but the rebels insisted the meeting be held in Europe.
Mr Rajapakse held talks with neighbouring India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, in Delhi on Wednesday on his first visit abroad since taking office last month. He said he wanted greater Indian involvement in the peace process.
Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said after the talks that Delhi was "deeply concerned" at the recent upsurge of violence, but refused to be drawn on India's enhanced involvement in Sri Lanka's peace process.