Push for peace in Lanka ahead of crucial talks

A series of visits by envoys and mediators are due in the Indian Ocean island to counsel the warring sides to pull back and focus on rebuilding a tattered peace process.

Yasushi Akashi, the peace envoy of the island's chief financial donor, Japan, will be in Colombo on Sunday followed by mediator Norway's special envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer for his second trip in a month.

US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher is to arrive on Thursday and is expected to convey Washington's support for peace talks and call for an immediate end to hostilities.

Akashi and Hanssen-Bauer are expected to travel to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) stronghold of Kilinochchi and meet rebel leaders ahead of the peace talks set for Oct 28-29 in Geneva.

The diplomatic activity is a sign that the international community is willing to support the two sides should they go back to the peace process, said Jehan Perera of the National Peace Council, a non-partisan peace advisory group.

"But their readiness to be supportive by itself will do nothing to make the peace talks successful," he said.

"That is the function of the parties involved and it is only if they are committed and sincere can there be success," Perera said. "At this point of time, I don't see such a commitment."

Sri Lanka has been plunged into a spiral of violence since late July and hundreds of people have been killed as a truce brokered in 2002 now exists only on paper.

More than 65,000 people have been killed since 1983 when the LTTE began fighting for an independent Tamil homeland.

Last week, dozens of troops and rebels were killed and hundreds wounded in one of the deadliest battles since the truce.

On Sunday, the Sri Lankan navy shot and sunk a suspected rebel trawler off the country's northwestern coast after its crew failed to heed warnings and opened fire, a spokesman said.

"We presume it was carrying a large quantity of arms and ammunitions. There was a huge explosion when we fired in retaliation," naval spokesman Commander DKP Dassanayake said.

Five or six men on the exploded boat were killed while three Sri Lankan sailors sustained gunshot wounds, he added.

Elsewhere, two soldiers were killed and 13 wounded in the northern region of Jaffna when the rebels fired mortars and artillery at army positions overnight, the Defence Ministry said.