The World - News from Nov. 23, 1987

Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka have “not responded positively” to a 48-hour unilateral cease-fire, an Indian Foreign Ministry official said. Instead, the official said, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam insisted on several “unacceptable preconditions” before they would surrender to the 25,000-member Indian force deployed in Sri Lanka’s Tamil-dominated north and east. The truce--aimed at giving the rebels a chance to endorse an accord on ending the island’s four-year-old civil war--was expected to end this morning. Meanwhile, in the capital of Colombo, a senior Sri Lankan official said his government has blocked an Indian plan to fly Vellupillai Prabhakaran, the Tamil Tiger leader, from his jungle hide-out to India for peace talks.