Sri Lanka: Bomb injures three as peace talks start
Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels set off a roadside bomb that wounded three police officers today, as government and rebel negotiators prepared for peace talks.
The bombing targeted a group of police officers on a road-clearing patrol in the volatile northern district of Vavuniya, a defence ministry officer said.
Vavuniya is the northernmost government-held garrison town before Tiger-held territory.
Government and Tiger officials are in Geneva for two-day talks set to start today, aimed at salvaging a 2002 Norwegian-brokered cease-fire that has virtually collapsed amid a major surge in fighting.
The rebels are holding formal talks with a government delegation for the first time since February, when both sides agreed to take "all necessary measures to ensure that there will be no intimidation, acts of violence, abductions or killings".
A second round of talks planned for April was cancelled after each side blamed the other for the rising violence.
Increased fighting in the island country off southern India has killed about 2,000 soldiers, rebels and civilians this year.
The rebels want a self-ruled homeland for the country’s minority ethnic Tamils, citing discrimination by the majority Sinhalese.
The government says it can offer autonomy, but not a separate state. The civil war flared up in 1983, and 65,000 people were killed until the truce in 2002.
