The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said on Monday night, that it was making the “goodwill” offer for the August 2-3 SAARC meet, that will bring together heads of state of eight countries. But it warned that the LTTE “will be forced to take defensive actions” if the government carried out military operations during this 10-day period. The Tigers’ political wing said in a statement e-mailed to the media that it was always keen to develop friendship with countries around the world, especially neighbouring countries.

The LTTE accused successive governments in Sri Lanka of not trying to “put forward a just solution to the national question of the Tamil people.” The politics in Sri Lanka “has today taken the form of a monstrous war.”

The truce offer comes when government troops claimed to have captured fresh rebel strongholds in the northwestern Mannar district where heavy fighting is raging on. Mannar is located 315 km northwest of Colombo.

Govt sceptical

A Sri Lankan minister on Tuesday expressed scepticism about the truce offer and said,  the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa was unlikely to accept it.

“I do not think that the government will fall into this trap, because we have enough experience with these kinds of offers of ceasefire from the LTTE in the past 30 to 40 years,” defence spokesperson Keheliya Rambukwella said.

Rambukwella also said that the truce offer from the LTTE was coming at a time “when they are getting heavily beaten by the advancing government troops in all fronts in the north.

“Our (the government) position is very clear that we can consider any such truce offer from the LTTE only (when it lays) down their weapons,” the spokesperson said.

President Rajapaksa, who has vowed to eradicate terrorism in the country, has declared that defeating the Tamil Tigers was a pre-requisite for any political solution to the ethnic crisis.