Saturday, June 17 2006 11:16 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Norway has no intention of running away from Sri Lanka's blood-soaked peace process despite the escalating violence and deepening ethnic tensions in the country.

The Norwegian government is convinced that an overwhelming majority of Sri Lankans - both Tamils and Sinhalese is desperate for peace and so the question of ditching the four-year-old process does not arise.

Norway's Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Hans Brattskar, will visit Kilinochchi, the political headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), next week to know the Tigers' stand on the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM).

The SLMM is a five-nation Nordic body that oversees the 2002 ceasefire agreement between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government.

After the European Union declared the LTTE a terrorist organisation last month, the Tigers have refused to accept representatives of Sweden, Finland and Denmark because their countries are part of the 25-member European body.

The three countries account for 37 of the SLMM monitors in Sri Lanka. The rest are from Norway and Iceland. Norwegian officials have said it will be impossible to replace monitors from Sweden, Denmark and Finland immediately.

In any case, even with the present strength, the SLMM monitors are finding it very difficult to check the ceasefire violations all over Sri Lanka's north and east.

The optimism notwithstanding, Norway and the co-chairs to Sri Lanka's peace process are deeply worried over the deteriorating situation in the island, where cold-blooded killings and counter-killings have become routine.

The worst attack since 2002 occurred Thursday when a claymore mine blast ripped through a bus about 25 km from Vavuniya in the country's north, killing 64 people, most of them Sinhalese. The victims included 15 children and a Buddhist monk.

Colombo blamed the LTTE, which denied responsibility.

On June 8, as a meeting between the LTTE and Sri Lankan officials failed to take place in Oslo, a frustrated Norway asked President Mahinda Rajapakse and LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran to confirm if they still stood by the 2002 truce or not. The answers are due by June 20.

Western diplomats in Colombo say both the government and the LTTE are to blame for the spiralling violence although, in recent weeks, more and more are finding the Tigers difficult to deal with.

"The developments are most disturbing," one diplomat told IANS.

Another diplomat underlined that the international community was willing to go out of its way to guide Sri Lanka towards reconciliation, but insisted that both parties to the conflict needed to make compromises.

The co-chairs want the LTTE to immediately end its campaign of violence. They also want Colombo to restrain the anti-LTTE Tamil groups and deliver on minority rights, human rights and investigate all political killings.

"The international community has made it very clear that it is up to the parties to deliver," the diplomat said.

"We are neither responsible for the deteriorating situation nor are we arbiters. We are ready to assist both parties if they are ready to search a democratically acceptable solution," he said.