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Canadian MP to ask Lankan rebels for truce

COLOMBO: Canadian parliamentarian Bill Graham plans to ask Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger guerrillas to initiate a ceasefire and resume peace talks, the state-owned Sunday Observer newspaper said.

Graham, head of the Canadian parliament's foreign affairs committee, told Sri Lankan migrant activists in Canada he planned to hold talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Paris this week during a tour of Europe, it said.

Canadian embassy officials were not immediately available for comment on the story.

Canada is home to a large number of Sri Lankan minority Tamil migrants and refugees who left the island because of the 13-year ethnic war which has killed more than 50,000 people.

The Tigers have branches in Canada where they raise funds.

The Sunday Observer reported Graham as saying that it was up to the LTTE to initiate a truce because it was the rebels who broke a three-month ceasefire in April last year.

The rebels recently intensified attacks on military targets before a widely expected offensive by the armed forces in the northern Jaffna peninsula.

Last week, the military said it was asking civilians in the north to stay away from known rebel camps as these were likely to come under artillery or air attack without notice.

The announcement, as well as a remark by Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte that he would end the ethnic war before the traditional new year on April 14, have been interpreted as heralding a major onslaught against the Tigers.

The military has poured troops into northern bases in what has been seen as a buildup for a new offensive, residents in the north earlier told Reuters.

But the rebels' clandestine radio, Voice of Tigers, said on Friday that the military had postponed the offensive because of heavy casualties over the past few months.

The military was silent about the offensive, but showed no immediate signs of weakening its efforts.-Reuter