Ready for talks with LTTE anytime: Sri Lankan govt.

Colombo, March 28 (AP): Sri Lanka's Government said it was ready to hold peace talks anytime with the Tamil Tigers, following two days of dramatic attacks by the rebels, including their first airstrike and a suicide bombing outside a military camp.

The attacks Monday and Tuesday killed 11 people and wounded 36.

``We must try to bring a comprehensive and substantial peace,'' Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogolagama told reporters Tuesday. ``Our government believes that we need to talk, we need to explore all avenues,'' he said, adding that if the rebels agreed to negotiation, ``we can have it tomorrow.''

The rebels did not immediately respond to the Sri Lankan offer, and violence continued despite the overture.

A military's foot patrol shot and killed two rebels after they were attacked by the insurgents in northwestern Mannar late Tuesday, the Defense Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.

Earlier Tuesday, a rebel drove an explosive-laden tractor to the Chinkaladi military camp in the eastern district of Batticaloa, drawing fire from guards and triggering a blast. The insurgent, three soldiers guarding the gate and five civilians were killed in the blast, military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe said. Twenty people were wounded in the attack.

The attacks came a day after at least one rebel propeller plane bombed a Sri Lankan air force base outside the capital, Colombo, in the separatists' first airstrike since they started their campaign for a homeland for the country's Tamil minority in 1983. Three airmen were killed in that attack and 16 were wounded, but no aircraft on the ground were damaged.

Apart from Tiger suicide bombings, almost all the fighting in the conflict has taken place in predominantly Tamil regions in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, and the airstrike showed the rebels can now strike deep inside the southern heartland of Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority.

Also Tuesday, air force fighter planes bombed three Tamil Tiger guerrilla positions in the northeast, but there was no information on damage or casualties, said air force spokesman Group Captain Ajantha Silva.

The Tigers launched their fight in 1983 to create an independent homeland for the country's 3.1 million Tamils after decades of discrimination by Sinhalese. In the years since, they have pioneered the use of suicide bomb belts and slowly built up a navy of small gunboats.

Hopes for peace that followed a 2002 ceasefire have been dashed in the past 18 months as sporadic shootings and bombings have grown into all-out war in eastern and northern Sri Lanka.

An estimated 65,000 people were killed in fighting before the ceasefire, and an estimated 4,000 fighters and civilians have died in the last 18 months.

A PTI report says:

Ban disturbed by escalating violence

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he is "disturbed" by the escalating violence in Sri Lanka and urged the island Government and Tamil rebels to return to the negotiating table.

A spokesperson for Ban said "he deeply regrets that air raids, military confrontations on the ground, and suicide bombings have become a daily occurrence, prompting massive displacement and suffering for civilians".

He is "disturbed" by the intensifying violence, which include an air attack by the LTTE, the spokesperson said.

Ban appeals to the parties to the conflict to break this vicious cycle of attack and retaliation, which only leads to more bloodshed and victims and urges the two, which have been engaged in a two-decade-long conflict, to "return to the negotiating table as soon as possible, without preconditions."

In a related development, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has launched a new media campaign to raise awareness about Sri Lankan citizenship.

Over the next five days, Tamil-language radio spots and newspaper advertisements will alert the public on the country's citizenship laws. The campaign targets ethnic Tamils because most of Sri Lanka's Stateless people are descendants of Indian Tamils brought to work in tea estates between 1820 and 1840 when the country was a British colony.

The 1988 and 2003 Citizenship Acts were passed to resolve the problem of stateless people in the country, but some of the so-called "Hill Tamils" have not been able to get the documents necessary to become Sri Lankan citizens.