The Sri Lankan government has decided to withdraw from the ceasefire agreement with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), government sources said Wednesday.

 

Military Spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said the cabinet made the decision Wednesday night after an Army bus was attacked in Colomboby suspected LTTE rebels Wednesday morning, killing four people and injuring 24 others.

 

Nanayakkara said the government has not officially informed the Norwegian government, the broker of the ceasefire agreement in 2002, about the decision.

 

According to the ceasefire agreement signed in February 2002, the agreement will be annulled 14 days after either the government or the LTTE informs the Norwegian government that it decides to withdraw from the agreement.

 

Government defense spokesperson Keheliya Rambukwella said that the government has taken the decision because the Norwegian facilitated agreement failed.

 

"The attempts made so far to have a negotiated settlement with LTTE terrorists could bring no favorable results," Rambukwella told media.

 

He said the government sees no point of having any attempt to come to a settlement with a terrorist outfit as the government is already in a negotiation process to address grievances of Tamil people with democratic Tamil political segments.

 

Both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE have been accused of blatant violations since the government came into force in Feb.22, 2002.

 

Analysts say the government's decision to pull out from the agreement signifies the current undeclared war will turn into all-out open hostilities.

 

The government and the LTTE held eight direct talks after signing the ceasefire agreement, but failed to find a political solution to the island's long drawn-out ethnic conflict.

 

More than 5,000 people have been killed as the conflict between the government and the LTTE began to escalate in the end of 2005, making the Norwegian brokered ceasefire agreement exist only on paper.

 

Claiming discrimination at the hands of the Sinhala majority, the LTTE has been fighting the government since the mid-1980s to establish a separate homeland for the minority Tamils in the north and east.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 3, 2008)