Sri Lanka's Tamil rebels have demanded the lifting of a ban to allow them to enter Norwegian-backed peace talks and warned against moves to outlaw them in Britain, diplomats and reports said Sunday.
The separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamale Eelam (LTTE), who have been outlawed in India and Sri Lanka and designated a "foreign terrorist organization" in the US, were seeking the revoking of the ban at home, the Sunday Leader newspaper said.
LTTE's London-based ideologue Anton Balasingham was quoted as saying that they could not enter talks while the Sri Lankan government was lobbying other governments to outlaw the separatist organization.
Britain junior Foreign Minister Peter Hain announced here last month that Britain was "very seriously considering" a request from the Colombo government to include the LTTE in a list of terrorist organizations.
Diplomatic sources said that there was a strong likelihood of the international community mounting pressure on the LTTE to enter peace by threatening to target the group's international operations.
The LTTE is known to operate offices in over 40 countries.
India outlawed the LTTE after the group was implicated and later found responsible for the assassination of former Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi in a suicide bomb attack in 1991.
An Indian request to the Sri Lankan government for the extradition of LTTE Supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran is currently pending while Interpol has issued a "wanted" notice against him.
The Sri Lankan government proscribed the LTTE on January 26 1998, a day after the LTTE was accused of driving a truck packed with explosives and devastated Buddhism's holiest shrine in the island's central town of Kandy.
The US state department included the LTTE in a list of banned foreign terrorist organizations in October 1997, and one week later the LTTE was accused of bombing the World Trade Centre building in the capital Colombo.
The ban on the LTTE emerged as a sensitive issue after LTTE supremo Prabhakaran met with Norway's special envoy to Sri Lanka, Erik Solheim on November 1.
Solheim said the LTTE was serious about entering political negotiations without preconditions.
LTTE's Prabhakaran announced his intention to start a dialogue with the government and said he was not imposing preconditions, but was "insisting" on conditions of normalcy.
Press reports here over the weekend quoted LTTE's Balasingham as saying that any move by Britain to include them in a list of "terrorist organizations" would make them real terrorists.
They also lambasted Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar for trying to drum up international support to crack down against the LTTE while moves were underway to open peace talks with the Tigers.
Sri Lanka President Chandrika Kumaratunga announced in December last year that she had asked Norway to help bring the LTTE to the negotiating table. There has been no indication of when the talks could begin.
There has been a recent escalation in fighting between government forces and the LTTE while the rebels have also been accused of stepping up attacks against civilians.
Previous attempts to politically end Sri Lanka's drawn out Tamil separatist conflict have ended in failure and led to more bloodshed. Over 60,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which has dragged on for over two decades – COLOMBO (AFP)
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