Sri Lanka's government proposed holding talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, as the rebels told a Norwegian peace envoy the army must end its offensives into rebel-held territory. President Mahinda Rajapaksa suggested Oct. 30 or Nov. 10 as possible dates for talks, the Department of Government Information said, according to a statement yesterday on the Ministry of Defense Web site. ``Our future course of action depends on actions of the Sri Lanka government,'' S.P. Thamilchelvan, the head of the LTTE's political wing, said yesterday, according to the TamilNet Web site. The government ``is engaged in a unilateral offensive warfare on the Tamil homeland.''
Norway is trying to broker talks to end fighting that is threatening a return to civil war in the country. A 2002 cease- fire, brokered by Norway, collapsed as the army captured rebel- held areas around the northeastern port of Trincomalee and the northern Jaffna peninsula. The South Asian island nation of 20 million people has had uninterrupted economic growth since the truce was declared. The Tamil Tigers must give assurances it will stop smuggling arms and refrain from violence during negotiations, the government told Jon Hanssen Bauer, the Norwegian envoy, during talks earlier this week in the capital, Colombo. ``So far, we have been flexible for talks,'' Thamilchelvan said after meeting Hanssen Bauer yesterday at the LTTE headquarters in Kilinochchi, northern Sri Lanka. ``Colombo seems to be locked in a military mindset. There are no signs of improvement from the Sri Lankan side.''
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