Swiss FM to visit Lanka to aid talks with Tigers

Last week leaders of the Tamil Tiger rebel group began a week-long meeting in Switzerland to prepare for the next round of peace talks with the Sri Lankan government.

Calmy-Rey is to meet Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga and government and Tamil opposition figures.

Talks have been stalled since April 2003 but the Swiss foreign ministry said last week it "welcomes the LTTE's continuing willingness to negotiate, and calls for peace talks to be resumed as soon as possible".

The LTTE has blamed the government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga for the delay in reviving negotiations which the rebels themselves suspended in April last year.

But Kumaratunga said last month that the Tigers, who want an independent state in the northeast of the island, were holding up talks aimed at ending a conflict that has claimed more than 60,000 lives since 1972.