Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebels warned President Chandrika Kumaratunga on Sunday that if the president is not serious about resuming talks with the rebels, the country is likely to go back to war.

"To make political negotiations successful, it is essential that gradual progress from easily agreeable issues leading subsequently to difficult political issues must be adopted," the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels said in a statement.

"This maxim must be told by the international community to the president. If this is not adopted, the foundation of peace laid with international assistance during the last three years would beshattered and Sri Lanka will again be converted into blood bath," the statement said.

The LTTE rebels accused the president of lacking sincerity to restart the peace talks with them which have been stalled since April last year.

The rebels' statement came one day after Kumaratunga said in a nationwide televised address that the both parties are yet to agree on conditions for the resumption of the peace talks.

The rebels insist that the setting up of an interim administration in the war-battered north and east should go beforethe resumption of the talks.

The president, however, said that the talks on the rebel self-rule proposals should be dealt along with the discussion of a permanent solution to the country's two decades of ethnic war.

Source: Xinhua