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EU backs peace bid in Lanka

COLOMBO, Monday (Reuters) - The European Union has backed Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's peace bid with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and promised aid for the war-torn North and East during the premier's weeklong visit to Europe, officials said on Monday.

The government is counting on international interest in the peace bid to add weight to the talks - the first in seven years - expected in the next two months in Thailand to end one of Asia's most protracted ethnic wars.

Four previous peace bids have ended in bloodshed.

"The visit went very well," said Bradman Weerakoon, the secretary to Wickremesinghe who returned to the island on Saturday. "The European Union has also promised aid," he said without giving figures.

The European Union gives $10 million to the country in aid annually and recently pledged $3 million to help people internally displaced due to the war.

A date has not yet been set for Norwegian-brokered peace talks, seen as the country's best chance of ending the nearly two-decade long conflict that has killed an estimated 64,000 people.

Weerakoon said the European Union would consider renovating a train line in the war-torn east coast and expanding a current programme to help the fisheries industry, among other projects.

The Prime Minister also met Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair whose country, among half a dozen other countries, maintains a ban on the LTTE.

The LTTE wants the government to lift a ban on the group before talks can begin -- an action Britain and other countries are not expected to follow.

The government has said it would consider the ending of the ban after a firm date for talks have been set.

State radio said government officials would travel to the LTTE-held Wanni in the North in the next few days to finalise dates for talks in Thailand -- the second face-to-face meeting in more than seven years.

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe is expected to travel to New Delhi for talks with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee next week. 

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