Tamil Tigers said on Sunday they would lift a blockade on water supplies to government areas and that a 2002 ceasefire still held, but warned further attacks by the military would mean war.
TRINCOMALEE: Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers said on Sunday they would lift a blockade on water supplies to government areas and that a 2002 ceasefire still held, but warned further attacks by the military would mean war.
The military said fighting had ceased for now in the east and that artillery guns that pounded rebel positions earlier on Sunday were now silent.
Tiger political wing leader SP Thamilselvan said the Tigers would unblock a sluice gate in the east -- a blockage that plunged the island into a fresh bout of civil war last month -- if the government agreed to their demands.
"Our leader has agreed to open the sluice on humanitarian grounds," Thamilselvan told reporters in the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi after talks with Norwegian peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer.
"The ceasefire is on at the moment, and if the military continues attacks and shellings and makes any more moves, we will consider it as a full scale war." Thamilselvan said he had given Hanssen-Bauer 3-4 weeks to ensure that the government complies with rebel demands that they guarantee water supplies to rebel areas and lift all economic obstacles in these areas on our people.
But he rejected Hanssen-Bauer's request to overturn an ultimatum that prompted Nordic truce monitors from European Union nations to quit the island, which reduces the mission to just 20 people -- not enough to do the job properly.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on Saturday halted their first offensive on army territory since a 2002 truce and pulled back to their original pre-ceasefire positions.
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