COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga Tuesday expressed willingness to hold talks with Tamil rebels without insisting on de-commissioning of weapons, but said they were refusing to negotiate.

Kumaratunga, in an interview on BBC television, said the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were unwilling to enter the Norwegian-backed peace process despite the concessions made by her.

"We were not asking for laying down of arms... or anything like that," Kumaratunga told BBC World’s Asia Today programme.

"We just said come for talks and we can see what we can agree to."

Earlier Sri Lanka had insisted the LTTE make a "commitment" to lay down arms, recognise the democratic right of other Tamil political groups and discuss substantive issues within a specified timeframe.

Kumaratunga said the guerrillas had in November agreed to unconditional talks, but later began imposing one condition after the other, including the lifting of a January 1998 ban.

The government was willing to consider lifting the proscription if the LTTE entered peace talks, Kumaratunga said, adding the Tigers had in recent months made it clear to the Norwegians that the process was on hold.

"The Norwegians are still on board but it seems a little slowed down because the LTTE have said they are not interested. The LTTE has clearly said we will wait and see."

Kumaratunga charged that the LTTE, which is leading a drawn out campaign for independence in the island’s northeast, was helping the main opposition United National Party (UNP) to defeat the government. Snap parliamentary elections are due on December 5.

The ruling People’s Alliance has begun repeating allegations made since the December 1999 presidential election campaign of a secret pact between the Tamil rebels and the opposition UNP.

However, ruling party dissidents said the government concocted the link between the separatists and the right-wing UNP and there was no truth in it.

"It is a red herring across the trail," said former constitutional affairs minister G. L. Peiris, who recently defected to the opposition. He dismissed allegations that the UNP was working together with the Tiger rebels.

"It is a desperate manoeuvre to divert the attention of the people from the more pressing problems of the economy, cost of living and democracy."

Moderate Tamil political parties have accused Kumaratunga’s government of scuttling the Norwegian-backed peace bid by sidelining Oslo envoy to Sri Lanka, Erik Solheim, in June this year.

Sri Lanka has made it clear they were unhappy with the conduct of Solheim who was seen by the authorities here as being sympathetic to the Tigers.

Kumaratunga argues the Tigers simply want the island’s drawn out Tamil separatist conflict to drag on.

"The LTTE is not interested even in the government’s proposals to resolve the Tamil people’s problems in the war and bringing in solutions to the people’s problems," Kumaratunga said. "They just want the war to go on."