The Sri Lankan government has said that four days of air strikes on rebel Tamil Tiger positions that have left at least 15 dead were a limited operation and not a return to full-scale war.
The defence ministry said the attacks were aimed at ending a Tiger blockade of an irrigation canal that had deprived water to thousands of farmers in the island's restive northeast.
"The security forces are currently engaged in a limited operation with a clearly defined objective of securing water supplies to the civilian population," read a statement from the ministry.
Sri Lankan war planes bombed Tamil Tiger positions for four straight days Wednesday through Saturday, despite a ceasefire on paper since 2002.
The violence, part of an escalation between the rebels and the government that erupted after presidential elections in November 2005, has led some of the Nordic countries monitoring the ceasefire to withdraw their nationals from the Swedish-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM).
The LTTE has demanded that observers from European Union members Finland, Denmark and Sweden leave the island after the EU added it to a list of "terrorist" organisations in May. That would leave only Norwegian and Icelandic monitors.
Finland and Denmark announced on Friday they would pull out by the end of August. Sweden has yet to announce its position.
Meanwhile, a regional Tamil Tiger leader asked the Nordic monitors Sunday to declare that Sri Lanka's troubled truce was officially over following this week's bombing campaign by Sri Lankan warplanes.
"It is now appropriate for the SLMM to declare publicly that the ceasefire agreement is not holding anymore on the ground," LTTE's regional leader S. Elilan told the pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website.
He said the rebels had also written to the LTTE requesting the move.
Under the February 2002 deal brokered by Norway, the truce can be terminated either by the Tigers or the Sri Lankan government with a written declaration to quit in two weeks. Neither have officially said they want out of the truce although both have accused the other of violations.
Artillery exchanges and further violence followed the air strikes that began on Wednesday, further undermining the ceasefire.
Two policemen were shot dead in Trincomalee on Friday by suspected Tiger gunmen, police said, pushing the death toll since violence flared in December to at least 910.
Peacebroker Norway is to send special envoy Jon Hansse-Bauer to Colombo next month to try to salvage the ceasefire, diplomats said.
Britain's deputy high commissioner Lesley Craig met the Tiger leadership in the rebel-held town of Kilinochchi on Friday and asked them to honour the ceasefire and move towards negotiations, the high commission (embassy) said.
"We stressed the need to dialogue," the mission said after Craig held talks with the leader of the Tigers' political wing, S.P. Thamilselvan.
More than 60,000 people have been killed in the three-decade-old Tamil separatist conflict.
PHOTO CAPTION
Sri Lankan military personnel form a line to stop demonstrators from approaching a sluice gate at the Mavilaru water tank area near the village of Kallar, in Sri Lanka July 29, 2006. (Reuters)