Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels have informed Norwegian peace brokers they will not attend scheduled peace talks with the Sri Lankan government in Switzerland until they hold an important internal meeting.
The rebels said in a letter Sunday they would suspend their participation in the talks because the government had prevented them from holding the meeting.
On Saturday, Tamil officials on their way to a meeting with their field commanders aborted the trip after complaining a naval ship monitoring them was too close.
The government's chief negotiator says there is serious doubt about whether the rebels want to go to Geneva for two days of talks scheduled to begin next Monday.
Violence in recent months has been among the worst since a 2002 truce, with more than 55 people killed in the past week alone.
Some information for this report provided by AP and AFP.
