(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-11 20:08

COLOMBO -- The Sri Lankan government said Friday it will continue its military operation against Tamil Tiger rebels despite the later's claim that it would abide by the ceasefire agreement signed with the government in 2002.

The government's defense spokesman, Keheliya Rambukwella, told reporters that government troops will liberate the whole country from terrorism.

The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said in a statement on Thursday that "it is ready to implement every clause of the CFA (ceasefire agreement) and respect it 100 percent."

The Sri Lankan government made a decision to withdraw from the ceasefire agreement on Jan. 2. The decision will take effect on Jan. 16, according to terms of the ceasefire agreement.

Both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE have been accused of blatant violations since the Norwegian-brokered truce came into force in Feb. 22, 2002.

The government and the LTTE held eight rounds of talks after signing the ceasefire agreement, but failed to find a political solution to the island's long drawn-out ethnic conflict.

More than 5,000 people have been killed as the conflict between the government and the LTTE began to escalate in the end of 2005, making the Norwegian brokered ceasefire agreement exist only on paper.

Claiming discrimination at the hands of the Sinhala majority, the LTTE has been fighting the government since the mid-1980s to establish a separate homeland for the minority Tamils in the north and east.