The Sri Lankan government said Wednesday that it has accepted an invitation by the Norwegian peace facilitators to attend a meeting next week in the Norwegian capital of Oslo to discuss the role of the international truce monitoring group.

"The government would like to respond positively to the request made by the Norwegian facilitators," the government said in Colombo in a statement.

Norwegian special envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer on Saturday announced that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government had been invited to meet in Norway on June 8-9 to discuss the issues concerning the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and the safety of its members while carrying out monitoring.

The SLMM, a 60-member group consisting of personnel from Nordiccountries on May 11 accused the LTTE of putting its members at risk in attacking a Sri Lankan troop carrier vessel.

Both the government and the rebels have shown displeasure with the work of the SLMM and both sides have taken exception to some of the statements made by the mission.

The government delegation to the Oslo meeting is to be headed by Palitha Kohona, the secretary general of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP).

The rebels, according to sources, are still considering its participation in Oslo talks after the European Union made a decision to ban the group.

Fighting breaks out in Sri Lanka's north

A fighting between the Sri Lankan Army and the Tamil Tigers broke out Wednesday morning in the island country's northern Jaffna peninsula amid escalating violence, the Army said in a statement.

The Army said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels started firing mortars and small arms towards the troops at the Forward Defense Line (FDL) at Nagarkovil, Jaffna, forcing government troops to retaliate with small arms and mortars.

"Terrorists firing lasted for about 45 minutes and terrorists in the opposite FDL afterwards retreated in the face of retaliatory fire, directed by the security forces," said the statement, adding that there were no injuries in the Army during the fighting.

The Army also denied a pro-LTTE 'TamilNet' website report that the actual position of the FDL at Nagarkovil has been distorted to the advantage of the LTTE.

The TamilNet report said that "LTTE has advanced significant distance" towards the Army's FDL and that the Army "has been forced to move back from their FDLs."

The fighting occurred among the country's escalating violence that has claimed over 500 lives since the beginning of December last year.

The upsurge in violence has threatened the ongoing Norwegian backed ceasefire between the government and the LTTE.

(Xinhua News Agency June 1, 2006)