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Tigers call for truce, Lanka army says no

AFP, Colombo
Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers appealed yesterday for international action to halt a major offensive against their shrinking fiefdom, but the island's military rejected any talk of a truce.
With rebel forces cornered in the northeast of the island by a massive attack by government forces, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) urged foreign powers to step in and arrange an immediate truce.
The LTTE said the United Nations, United States, the European Union, Japan and one-time peace broker Norway had to pressure theSri Lankan government into acceptingaceasefirq "so the miseries of the Tamils... are brought to an end."
"We also wish to inform the international community that we‘> are ready to discuss, cooperate, and work together in all their efforts to bring an immediate ceasefire and work towards a political settlement," the LTTE's political chiefB.Nadesansaidinastatement.
But the Sri Lankan military said it would accept nothing short of complete surrender and disarmament.
"Our position is that they must lay down arms and surrender," said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara "There is no shift in our position."
The government withdrew from a Norwegian-brokered truce at the start of last year, after accusing the Tigers of using a peace process only to re-arm and consolidate their de facto mini-state in the north of the island. iSubsequent fighting has seen the LTTE lose control over nearly all of the north, including their one-time political capital of Kilinochchi and main military base of Mullaittivu.
The Tigers, who are fighting for an independent ethnic Tamil homeland on the Sinhalese-majority island, are now hemmed into a narrow strip of coastal jungle area near Mullaittivu.
The government has vowed to completely defeat theTigers by April, when the country marks the traditional Sinhala and Tamil New Year.
The fighting has stoked concern for tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the conflict zone, and the government has accused the rebels of using local Tamil civilians has human shields.
The LTTE statement, however, charged that dozens of people were being killed and wounded daily in the relentless bombardment of rebel territory and rejected calls for it to disarm.
'The world should take note that calls for the LTTE to lay down its arms and surrender is not helpful for resolving
the conflict,’ said the statement
"The protection of the Tamil people is dependent on the arms of the LTTE," the Tigers said.
"When a permanent political solution is reached for the Tamil people with the support and the guarantee of the international community, the situation will arise where there will be no need for the arms of the LTTE.'