The Sri Lankan government says it has formally outlawed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
The move was announced Wednesday evening by the Cabinet and was seen as a formality that ruled out the possibility of new peace talks between the bitter enemies who are fighting a brutal civil war, Associated Press reported.
Speaking at a special press briefing in Colombo, Minister Maithripala Sirisena said the cabinet unanimously approved the proposal by the President Mahinda Rajapakse to ban the LTTE.
The cabinet’s decision redesignates the LTTE as a terrorist group, Sri Lanka's defence spokesman said.
"The cabinet has decided to ban the LTTE as they are not allowing civilians to leave the war zone," Reuters quoted defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella, also a minister, as telling a press conference.
The move was viewed as a symbolic action with little concrete repercussions, Associated Press reported.
Government officials had already vowed to destroy the group, the agency said.
Though largely symbolic since the LTTE are already on U.S., E.U. and Indian terrorist lists and the government routinely calls them that, the cabinet vote is just one more sign Sri Lanka has no plans to negotiate, reiterated Reuters.
This was the second time the Sri Lankan government has banned the LTTE.
The original ban was imposed on the Tigers in January 1998, and lifted as part of a Norway-brokered truce four years later.
Rajapakse scrapped the poorly observed truce a year ago, accusing the LTTE of using it to re-arm and vowing to wipe them out.
But the main opposition United National Party has just recently defended the truce, saying that current victories are a result of assistance provided to the Sri Lankan military by the US and other countries during the ceasefire.
The move comes as the UK and US released statements calling for a political solution to resolve the conflict.
