S.Lanka says peace brokers can't visit rebel area

By Shihar Aneez

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka has refused requests by Norwegian peace mediators to visit rebel territory, and said fresh peace talks hinged on Tamil Tiger guarantees to lay down arms and stick to a negotiation timetable.

Nordic ceasefire monitors quit the country this year after the six-year Norway brokered truce disintegrated.

Earlier this week, Seewaratnam Puleedevan, secretary-general of the rebels' Peace Secretariat, said he wanted to meet directly with peace facilitators.

However, the government said the team headed by Norway's Special Peace Envoy John Hansen Baur, would, for now, not be allowed to visit the rebels' northern stronghold.

"We don't want -- Mr. Baur coming up, so that they can take photographs of him and say 'Mr. Baur has come to see the terrible sufferings inflicted on Tamil people of the Tamil Ealam'. It can't be propaganda," Rajiva Wijesinghe, the secretary-general of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP), told Reuters on late Wednesday.

"Baur had wanted to go. But we have told him, we want a very clear idea of why you are going. It would mean a commitment of the LTTE and what they want Baur to come and talk about."

The government said it would only consider restarting the dead peace process when the rebels agreed to a clear road map to ending the 25-year civil war that has killed more than 70,000 people.

The government's stance comes amid intensified fighting between the military and rebels who want an independent state in the north and east.