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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lkdood" data-source="post: 2210481" data-attributes="member: 92282">Tamil Tigers accused the Sri Lankan government on Tuesday of denying international mediators access to the rebels and said Colombo was not ready for peace talks. In an exclusive telephone interview with Reuters, S. Puleedevan, Secretary General of the rebels' Peace Secretariat, also said 20,000 civilians had been displaced in the government's latest offensive against the Tiger's northern stronghold.Sri Lanka's 25-year civil war reignited in 2006, dealing a blow to tourism and deterring some investors, and fighting between the military and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has intensified since the government annulled a 6-year-old Norwegian-brokered truce in January."Sri Lanka armed forces are losing a lot of soldiers ... many more (losses) will come if they inch into LTTE territory," Puleedevan said from the rebel's stronghold in the north of the Indian Ocean island.Analysts say the military has the upper hand in the latest phase of the long-running war. The army drove the Tigers out of their eastern enclave last year, but the rebels have held most of their northern territory and hit back with bombings in Colombo. "The heavy fighting is going on, at the FDL (Forward Defence Line)," said Puleedevan. "We have inflicted a lot of damage for Sri Lankan armed forces. They are unable to gain any territory." President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government, dominated by the Sinhalese majority, has promised devolution and development in recaptured areas, while vowing to destroy the Tigers militarily by the end of the year.          PEACE PROSPECTS GLOOMYNordic ceasefire monitors quit the country this year after the ragged truce disintegrated, and Puleedevan was pessimistic about the chances of renewed peace efforts, accusing the government of refusing to let Norwegian facilitators meet the rebels. "We have to first discuss with the facilitators. We want to know what is their thinking. The Sri Lankan government is not ready for that, that's the problem," he said. "The important thing is we need to have one-to-one meetings in person, but the government is not allowing them to visit. They are preventing them."          Sri Lanka says the rebels were never serious about peace and used the ceasefire to regroup and re-arm.The Tigers, who are fighting for an independent state in the north and east, said the new offensive in the north has resulted more than 20,000 civilians fleeing their homes in areas where the fighting is heaviest."There are a lot of civilians displacements in Mannar and Mullaitivu areas, because of heavy artillery shelling and aerial bombardments," said Puleedevan. "They are firing artillery and mortars towards the civilian populated areas."          The protracted civil war has killed more than 70,000 people.The military say they have killed more than 4,000 rebels this year alone while losing 460 of their soldiers, and that the Tigers have killed 205 civilians so far this year. Independent confirmation of battlefield casualties is not possible because of lack of access, and military analysts say both sides routinely exaggerate the other's losses.<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSCOL149101._CH_.2400" target="_blank">reuters</a></blockquote>

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