COLOMBO, Feb 7: Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunga dissolved the parliament on Saturday, in an apparent bid to end a bitter power struggle that has threatened to take the country back to war, officials said.

President Kumaratunga used her executive powers to dissolved the parliament, led by her arch rival, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, setting the stage for a snap election almost four years before schedule.

"We have just got the gazette notification for immediate printing," said government printer Neville Nanayakkara, who performs a quasi-legal function in the publication of official notices.

He said Chandrika Kumaratunga had dissolved the 225-member legislature with immediate effect.

The president had been in an uneasy cohabitation arrangement with Mr Wickremesinghe since his party won parliamentary elections in Dec 2001.

The two leaders, who are elected separately, have been at odds over the handling of the Norwegian-backed peace process with Tamil Tiger rebels aimed at ending three decades of ethnic bloodshed that has claimed over 60,000 lives since 1972.

There was no immediate reaction from Mr Wickremesinghe's government to the dissolution, which had been widely expected after Ms Kumaratunga last month entered into a pact with a radical leftist party.

With the dissolution, the prime minister and his cabinet would function in a caretaker capacity with no power to take key decisions.

It was not immediately clear when elections would be held as the process is handled separately by an independent body of officials.-AFP