Sri Lanka peace talks set for early October in Oslo

COLOMBO, Sept. 12 Kyodo

Sri Lanka's government and the Tamil Tiger rebels have agreed to ''unconditionally'' hold peace talks in the first week of October, a Norwegian peace envoy said Tuesday.

Erik Solheim made the announcement at a meeting of Sri Lanka's key financial donors -- the United States, Japan, the European Union and Norway -- in Brussels to review the island's worsening security situation.

''The government of Sri Lanka said it was ready for talks without any preconditions,'' Solheim said when contacted by telephone. ''Now we have the same message from the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam).''

''We will have the talks in Oslo in the first week of October,'' he added.

He said the donor nations expressed the hope that both sides would halt violence that has claimed the lives of at least 1,500 people in the past 10 months.

''Failure to cease hostilities, pursue a political solution, respect human rights and protect humanitarian space could lead the international community to diminish its support,'' the donors said in a two-page, 12-paragraph statement.

The four key aid donors are known as the ''co-chairs,'' because they met in Tokyo in June 2003 to drum up international financial support for the island's peace bid.

''The co-chairs are deeply alarmed by the recent deliberate violations of the cease-fire agreement by the parties,'' they said in the statement sent here from Brussels.

''These have escalated violence and resulted in massive and widespread human suffering, including the abuse of human rights, the displacement of innocent citizens, a humanitarian crisis and an exodus of refugees to India,'' the statement said.

The Tigers and the government had their last meeting in February in Switzerland to save their truce. A second meeting in June in Oslo was aborted.

The peace talks aimed at ending three decades of ethnic bloodshed came to a halt in April 2003 when the Tigers walked out of the talks after they had six rounds of negotiations starting in Thailand in September 2002. they had their last round of peace talks at Hakone, Japan, in March 2003.

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