Norway on Friday blamed the European Union for contributing to a breakdown in talks between Sri Lanka and Tamil Tigers which has thrown the question of further Norwegian mediation wide open. The rebels on Thursday aborted a two-day meeting in Oslo with Colombo representatives arranged by Norway to discuss the safety of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) overseeing a fragile truce.

They said they objected to the presence of EU members in the SLMM following a decision by the EU last month to place the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on its list of terrorist organisations.

"There is no doubt that this is an underlying issue hardening the position of the LTTE prior to the Oslo meeting," Norway's minister for international development, Erik Solheim, told AFP.

As Norway pondered its future role after failed talks left their staff on the ground exposed and without explicit backing from the warring parties, it also blamed the two adversaries for their role in the breakdown of talks.

"The parties must take responsibility for the worsening situation. They have been acting contrary to our advice. There is at the present time no room for a Norwegian initiative in the peace process," an angry Solheim said.

But Norwegian observers also faulted the EU for offending the rebels at a sensitive time, and doing its own members a disservice at the same time.

"The EU decision was taken on the basis of certain criteria about which organisations should be on the list, without taking into consideration the adverse consequences the decision might have for their own member states," said Stein Toennesson, director of the Oslo Peace Research Institute (PRIO).

"The EU is not suited for taking positions on acute political problems. It has long been known that the LTTE, through the Norwegian facilitators, has tried to avoid ending up on the EU terror list," he told AFP.

The rebels called for removal of truce monitors from European Union states, which observers in Norway said would reduce the SLMM staff to 20 Norwegian and Icelandic peacekeepers, from nearly 60 now, including observers from EU members Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

Norway, which has been Sri Lanka's peacebroker since January 2000, declared Thursday's Oslo talks a failure when it was not able to orchestrate a face-to-face encounter between the two, blaming the Tigers for the breakdown.

Tamil Tigers hit back accusing Norway of placing too much emphasis on arranging a face-to-face meeting rather than discussing issues relating to the troubled 2002 truce.

Diplomats said the failure of Norway's latest efforts have fuelled fears the island could return to full-scale hostilities. More than 680 people have been killed since December despite a truce.

By courtesy AFP

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