Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels said today they were ready to resume peace talks with the government if it accepts their proposal for power-sharing, a plan the president has previously rejected.
The proposal came in a meeting between Tiger representatives and envoys from Norway who are trying to end one of Asia's longest civil wars by getting stalled peace talks back on track.
The mediators said after a meeting yesterday with President Chandrika Kumaratunga that face-to-face talks were unlikely soon.
"The Liberation Tigers are fully prepared to resume the negotiations on the same principles and atmosphere as it did with the previous government in Colombo," the leader of the LTTE rebels' political wing, SP Thamilselvan, was quoted as saying on the Tamilnet website.
Thamilselvan made the remarks during a meeting in the rebel-held north with the Norwegian representatives.
Norway brokered a two-year truce, but direct talks to end a war that has killed 64,000 people have been suspended for a year amid a power struggle between President Kumaratunga and her rival, former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Ms Kumaratunga's party won elections last month but only managed to form a minority government, raising doubts about whether it has enough power to revive the peace process.
She has criticised the previous government, saying it was conceding too much to the rebels for the sake of peace. She has been a bitter foe of the Tigers since they tried to assassinate her in a suicide bomb attack that blinded her in one eye.
The rebels, who have battled for a homeland in the north and east since 1983, insist talks can only proceed if the government accepts their power-sharing plan proposed last November.
The proposal for an interim self-governing authority was the first time the rebels had put in writing an extensive roadmap to end the island's ethnic conflict.
Ms Kumaratunga rejected the plan before the election, saying it would lead to a divided country.
More than $4.5 billion of international aid was pledged to Sri Lanka at a Tokyo conference last year, conditional on progress in the peace process. That has done little so far to lure either side back to the table.