Colombo: European peace monitors said on Saturday the Sri Lankan government had violated a cease-fire agreement when it launched deadly airstrikes on Tamil Tiger rebel territory, as the administration said it was prepared to resume peace talks in Switzerland.
The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission also said it feared that government security forces have been involved in ''extrajudicial killings of civilians,'' and criticised the rebels for installing political and military targets near the civilian population.
Meanwhile, a pro-rebel Web site blamed Sri Lanka's army of detonating a mine in a rebel-held region in northeastern Sri Lanka Saturday, killing two guerrillas.
However, military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe denied the allegation, saying that the military never entered rebel-held areas.
A Norway-brokered four-year-old cease-fire prohibits government military and Tamil Tigers from entering each other's territories with arms.
The government launched two days of airstrikes on rebel positions after a suicide attack in Colombo last Tuesday which wounded the country's top army commander and killed at least 11 others. The airstrikes killed 12 people and displaced thousands more.
"The air strikes that were conducted by the Sri Lankan government in Trincomalee district on Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam targets ... are a clear violation of the cease-fire agreement," the SLMM said.
The monitors also urged the government "to refrain from such operations as they can jeopardize the cease-fire further and will only add fuel to the conflict."
The government earlier said it would not launch more airstrikes if the guerillas also stopped their attacks. No violence or airstrikes occurred overnight, Samarasinghe said.
The SLMM also criticized the rebels, saying it was "inexcusable" of them "to place military or political targets among the civilian population close to schools and private houses." The rebels have said the 12 killed in the airstrikes were all civilians.
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The monitors also raised fears Saturday that government security forces were conducting extrajudicial killings of civilians. They did not elaborate.
"This violence must stop immediately if the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE are to make any progress in returning to the negotiation table," they said.
The SLMM's comments came as the government said it was prepared to travel to Switzerland any time to resume peace talks with the rebels, amid fears the country may be slipping back toward a civil war.
"We are flexible on the dates. What we want is to resume the peace talks as soon as possible," government minister and spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told The Associated Press Saturday.
The government and the rebels were scheduled to meet in Geneva April 24-25, but the talks were stalled over disputes between the government and the rebels and insurgents' allegations that violence against Tamils must stop.
Norwegian peace brokers said in Oslo on Friday that the rebels and government agreed to meet, but that no date has been set. The two sides held a first round of peace talks in February.
The announcement followed a meeting in Oslo of representatives from the European Union, the United States, Norway and Japan_the so-called "co-chairs" of the peace process_to discuss ways to stop the escalation of violence in Sri Lanka.
There was no immediate comment available from the rebels about attending the Geneva talks.
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