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EU urges humanitarian truce in Lanka

AFP, Brussels
European Union foreign ministers issued a joint call yesterday for an immediate ceasefire between Sri Lankan security forces and Tamil Tiger rebels to allow aid in and civilians out of the conflictzone.
"The EU is deeply concerned about the evolving humanitarian crisis and vast number of internally displaced people," the EU ministers said in a joint statement after talks in Brussels.
"The EU calls for an immediate ceasefire thereby providing for the establishment of full and unrestricted access" to allow aid to reach a jungle area of northern Sri Lanka as well enable traumatised civilians to leave.
Government forces are keeping up a major offensive there against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) guerrillas who have been hemmed into an increasingly smaller zone in the north.
The Tigers appealed Monday for international action to halt the offensive, but the island's military rejected any talk of a truce.
The EU foreign ministers urged the Sri Lankan government to ensure that camps for the displaced come up to international standards and can be independently monitored.
The foreign ministers also called on the Tamil Tigers to lay down their arms "and renounce terrorism."
"The EU remains convinced that the longstanding conflict in Sri Lanka cannot be resolved by military means," the ministers' statement asserted.
They also highlighted human rights abuses in the country, including "enforced disappearances," extra-judicial killings and harassment of media and human rights workers.
"The EU calls on Sri Lankan authorities to take decisive action to tackle human rights abuses, to guarantee press freedom and to disarm paramilitary groups in government-controlled
areas" the statement said.
The conclusions echo in part those of Sri Lanka's key international backers, the United States, Japan, Norway and the European Union who earlier this month told the island's cornered Tamil Tiger rebels to surrender.
The quartet, known as the Co-Chairs, asked the Tigers in a statement to negotiate terms of a surrender with the gov-ernment of President Mahinda Rajapakse, who has vowed to crush them.
There has been growing international concern for the safety of tens of thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire of the conflict.
Sri Lanka's government has resisted international calls for a truce and said it had entered the final phase of finishing off the Tigers, who have been waging a campaign for a separate state since 1972.
Military commanders have expressed the hope of defeating the guerrillas by April.