Envoys from Asia and Europe headed for Tamil rebel territory yesterday 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 the EU -- 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.
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, 220km north of the capital, Colombo, said navy spokesman Commander. 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 that they were involved in the attack.
"The ... Tigers were not involved in any activity that breaches the cease-fire agreement," spokesman for the rebel group Daya Master said.
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.
RSS