Colombo, May 11: Sri Lankan troops and LTTE rebels today agreed to uphold the ceasefire and work together to battle a rising crime in the embattled eastern region as a spate of killings undermined their fragile truce.
The two sides agreed to develop a system to share information and put in place mechanisms to arrest criminal activity following a dozen killings, including those of a government soldier and tiger rebels. A joint statement by the two parties and the Norwegian-led truce monitors known as the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) said they agreed to uphold the ceasefire, which is in place since Februay 2002, despite the latest killings "The parties agreed to work out practicalities and to continue the good cooperation...," the statement said, adding that they agreed to meet once in two weeks "to develop mechanisms to ensure information sharing and quick reaction procedures to prevent serious crime." The SLMM called the emergency meeting of the two sides in the eastern district of Batticaloa today after warning that the slayings in the district were a "serious threat" to the Norwegian-backed peace bid in Sri Lanka.


The SLMM said the killing spree since April 25 was a violation of the truce that went into effect from February 2002 but stopped short of apportioning blame.


The latest statement came as Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen and his deputy Vidar Helgesen met Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran in a bid to help revive peace talks that have been stalled since April 2003.


Bureau Report