The European Union has agreed in principle to blacklist Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels as a "terrorist" group, EU diplomats said Friday, in a move the rebels said would only lead to war in the country.
A formal decision on the blacklisting "could come extremely quickly", perhaps as early next week, one EU diplomat said in Brussels. Another said it would come "before June".
A number of diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the "extremely sensitive" nature of the subject, told AFP the decision had been taken by EU officials late on Thursday.
The decision came two days after a US State Department official said in Sri Lanka that Washington had encouraged the 25-member EU to ban the Tigers, declare them a terrorist group and cut off their international funding.
Diplomatic sources had said some EU members feared a ban could prompt the Tigers to pull out of the peace process completely.
The rebels' top negotiator, in comments received earlier Friday, said moves to ban the Tigers would be detrimental to peace. "Emboldened by international support, and especially by further proscriptions of the LTTE, the Sinhala hard-line elements will undoubtedly take steps to further escalate the violence and precipitate a war in which they hope to destroy the LTTE," Anton Balasingham was quoted as saying by the pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website. He has led delegations of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in negotiations with various Sri Lankan governments.
Balasingham was quoted as saying that an EU ban "is not going to help bring about peace, (but) will only serve to exacerbate the conditions of war and endanger the lives of Tamil civilians entrapped by Sinhala occupation forces."
He warned that further bans on the LTTE "will invigorate the hard-line elements in the south, including those in the present Sri Lankan government urging the military defeat of the LTTE and silence those advocating a negotiated solution.
US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Camp ended a visit to Sri Lanka on Tuesday by saying Washington had "encouraged the EU to list the LTTE" as a terrorist group.
The US banned the LTTE in 1997, five years after India outlawed the group, holding it responsible for the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Canada labelled the Tigers a "terrorist" group last month.
The EU freezes the assets of groups on its terrorist list. The designation also allows for special co-operation measures to combat them.