April 17 (Bloomberg) -- Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels said they may not attend peace talks scheduled for next week in Geneva because of travel restrictions on senior officials.

``Until the hurdles in front of us to attend Geneva talks are removed and a more conducive environment created, our Geneva team is unable to come to the Geneva talks,'' S.P. Thamilchelvan, leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's political wing, said in a letter to Hans Brattskar, Norway's ambassador to Sri Lanka, which was posted on the group's Web site.

Talks between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels in Geneva were postponed to April 24-25 as a surge in violence threatens a truce that ended the South Asian island's civil war. The LTTE said the government is preventing its officials located in the eastern part of the island from traveling to meetings in the north ahead of the Geneva talks.

The government and rebels blame each other for the increase in violence since they held their first meeting in three years in February in Geneva. About 50 people have been killed over the past week in mine explosions the government blames on the Tamil Tigers and violence between the majority Sinhalese community and ethnic Tamils.

The Geneva talks were postponed from April 19 at the request of the rebels. During the talks in February, the two sides agreed to endorse the cease-fire reached in 2002.

Fresh Violence

The government and rebels also pledged to take measures to prevent intimidation, acts of violence, abductions or killings. The government said it will ensure no armed groups other than its security forces carry weapons while the Tamil Tigers pledged to take measures to stop attacks on the military and police.

At least four soldiers were killed early today when suspected Tamil Tiger rebels ambushed an army truck in the northern town of Vavuniya, the army's media unit said. At least seven soldiers were injured in the blast, which may have been a mine explosion or suicide bombing, the army said.

A separate blast in the northern town of Jaffna soon after didn't cause any military casualties, the army said.

The rebels have denied carrying out the attacks and have accused the government of failing to meet pledges to control paramilitary groups.

Sri Lanka's Colombo All-Share Index was poised for its biggest fall in almost four months, declining 70.33 points, or 3 percent, to 2314.55 at 10:58 a.m. local time. The yield on the 7.2 percent bond due in 2010 rose 5 basis points to 10.95 percent.

International Aid

A five-nation truce mission on March 26 said the government and LTTE have shown a ``lack of commitment'' to the cease-fire agreement and to implementing pledges made at the February talks.

International aid donors to Sri Lanka, led by the U.S., European Union, Japan and Norway, have made progress toward a peace settlement a condition of providing $4.5 billion in aid.

Palitha Kohona, the new secretary general of Sri Lanka's Peace Secretariat, yesterday met leaders of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission to ``iron out the differences that had arisen'' over the transportation of LTTE officials, the Daily Mirror reported today.

The government will not be intimidated by the rebels, the newspaper cited Kohona as saying.

The rebels say Tamils are discriminated against by Sri Lanka's mostly Buddhist Sinhalese majority. Tamils make up less than a fifth of the island's population of 20 million. A two- decade civil war has left more than 60,000 people dead.

To contact the reporters on this story: Anusha Ondaatjie at anushao@bloomberg.net; Subramaniam Sharma in New Delhi at ssharma@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 17, 2006 01:54 EDT