Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has called on the Tamil Tigers to come to negotiations in a bid to find a lasting solution to the island country's ethnic issue, the official Daily News said Wednesday.

According to the newspaper, the president told New Delhi Television (NDTV) recently that his government will offer an outline of peace to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and will leave it to them to flesh out a peace deal, if they return to the negotiating table.

"We will give them an outline, we can get the LTTE to sit and draft what they want. They can discuss," the president was quoted as saying.

Speaking on the government's stand with regard to the issue of Karuna faction which broke away from the LTTE in 2004, the president said there was no question of his government allowing the Karuna faction to operate in the areas controlled by it.

Rajapaksa was responding to LTTE spokesperson Anton Balasingham 's statement in his recent interview to NDTV that they will come to the negotiating table only if the Sri Lankan government reined in the Karuna faction.

Escalation of violence from the end of 2005 has claimed about 900 lives in Sri Lanka and marred efforts of the Norwegian peace facilitators to re-start the negotiating process between the government and the LTTE.

The talks broke down in April 2003 after six rounds of direct talks.

Source: Xinhua