Sri Lankan peace deal 'could be signed within days'

Officials in Sri Lanka have said a peace deal between the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels could be signed within two days, despite a sea battle today which left three sailors dead.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is expected to travel to the north of the country tomorrow for further peace talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an ethnic Tamil rebel group which has been fighting for independence from the Sinhalese-dominated government for 19 years.

More than 64,000 people have died during the war, while 1.6 million other have been displaced from their homes.

Today’s clash was the first major violation of a ceasefire brokered by Norway after Mr Wickremesinghe’s party won parliamentary elections in December and immediately announced plans to begin peace talks.

One Sri Lankan naval officer and two sailors were killed in the fighting, which started when a naval patrol spotted 10 rebel boats off the coast.

The government in Colombo moved quickly to state that the clash will not affect the efforts to restart peace talks.

The LTTE wants to divide Sri Lanka along ethnic lines, saying the Tamil minority can only prosper independent of the Sinhalese majority, which makes up 14 million of the country’s 18.6 million population.