Colombo: Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga's party on April 25 said that India should monitor a truce brokered by Norway between the military and Tamil Tiger rebels.

Kumaratunga's Foreign Affairs advisor Lakshman Kadirgamar said New Delhi should send monitors to supervise the Tiger rebels' movements at sea where there have been several clashes with the Sri Lankan Navy recently.

"We have had lots of informal discussions and we are confident that India would respond favourably," he said.

Kadirgamar, who had accompanied Kumaratunga to India in early April said the President and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee did not discuss a possible Indian role in monitoring the truce, but there had been several "other consultations" and they had been "very positive".

However, there was no immediate reaction from the Indian High Commission.

The announcement comes four days after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) announced a pull out from peace negotiations with the government, jeopardising the 14-month-old ceasefire in operation.

A statement issued by all the Opposition parties led by Kumaratunga's People's Alliance (PA) coalition called for Indian officials to be included in the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM), now composed exclusively of Scandinavians.

The six-page joint Opposition statement said the time has come for a change in the composition of the monitoring mission. "Otherwise, as recent events at sea have shown, grave damage could be caused not only to the sovereign interests of Sri Lanka but to the sovereign interests of our Northern neighbour with whom we are linked."

The communique said that India and two other unnamed countries should be invited to monitor the truce as the "Naval conflict was becoming a regional problem relating to movements in the Indian Ocean".

Kadirgamar slammed the SLMM's suggestion earlier this week that the LTTE's Sea Tigers be recognised as an independent Naval unit, saying that would undermine India's national security.

India has declined to be overtly involved in the Oslo-sponsored peace bid, which saw the two antagonists sit down in September to end a war that has taken over 60,000 lives.

However, both Norwegian diplomats and Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have kept New Delhi informed of every step of the effort.

In 1992, India was the first country to proscribe the LTTE for the suicide bomb assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991. After a failed effort to bring the warring parties together in 1985, New Delhi sent in troops in 1987, only to withdraw them in 1990.

PTI