COLOMBO (AFP) - - Sri Lanka's government Wednesday decided to formally end a moribund peace process with Tamil rebels and withdraw from a ceasefire arranged by peace broker Norway, top officials told AFP.

"The cabinet of ministers today decided to pull out of the ceasefire," presidential spokesman Chandrapala Liyanage said. "The legal process will now kick in."

Under the February 2002 ceasefire brokered by Oslo, both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers had the option to pull out after giving two weeks' written notice to the Norwegian foreign minister.

The defence ministry said the government had also decided to formally end any negotiating process with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which was held responsible for a bomb attack in Colombo on Wednesday which police said killed at least five and wounded 28.

"The government sees no point of having any attempt to come to a settlement with a terrorist outfit," the ministry said, quoting its spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella.

The military retaliated to the bombing with several air attacks inside rebel-held territory in the north, defence authorities said, adding that two senior Tamil Tigers had been killed.

However, the LTTE said only two civilians were wounded in the air attack.

Rambukwella, who is also a cabinet minister in charge of foreign employment, argued that the government was already addressing grievances of minority ethnic Tamils and therefore there was no need to talk to the Tigers.

The government set up a committee to look into the legal implications of the latest decision to withdraw from the ceasefire, the centrepiece of Norway's attempts to broker an end to the island's drawn-out Tamil separatist conflict.

Last week, the president's defence secretary, his brother Gotabhaya Rajapakse, publicly declared there was no point in observing a moribund truce and described the ceasefire agreement as a "joke".

His remarks came three days after the president ruled out holding negotiations with the Tigers before the army is able to crush them militarily. The government has vowed to escalate the war against the rebels this year.

Earlier, both the government and the LTTE had been reluctant to be the first to formally quit the truce, fearing an international backlash. However, Colombo's move had the backing of hard-line political parties at home.

The truce had initially halted the daily death toll reported from the island, but talks in October 2006 failed to revive the on-off peace process.

The move also followed a call by the United States to revive stalled peace talks between the government and the Tamil Tigers.

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