The President of Sri Lanka has urged the Tamil Tiger rebels to enter talks to end decades of fighting.

In a speech marking Sri Lanka's fifty-second anniversary of independence from Britain, Chandrika Kumaratunga said a negotiated peace was now within reach.

A truce was declared shortly after she took power in 1994, but collapsed after one hundred days.

There's been no reaction by the Tamil Tigers to the latest offer. The Tamil Tigers are fighting for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east of the island.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service