COLOMBO, March 17: The United States has stepped up pressure on Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels to fall in line with a Norwegian-backed peace bid or face a major international crackdown, diplomats said here Sunday.

The US assistant secretary of state for South Asia, Christina Rocca, ended a three-day visit to Sri Lanka Saturday saying that Washington was taking a higher profile in supporting Oslo’s attempts to broker peace on the island. The US would reconsider its October 1997 designation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a foreign terrorist organisation only if the Tigers give up their key demand for an independent state, Rocca said.

She also reiterated that the Tigers must abandon terrorism and start respecting human rights for Washington to revise its stand on the guerrillas who have been fighting for a separate state called Eelam in the island’s northeast.

Diplomatic sources here said Rocca’s visit coupled with the high-profile visit of a US Marine general, Timothy Ghormley, was a powerful signal of support to the peace process and a warning to the rebels.

Rocca became the first high-level US official to visit war-ravaged Jaffna peninsula on Friday, creating history by travelling in the first US aircraft to touch down there.

The visit came four days after the US embassy here warned Tiger rebels against violating a truce with the government and hinted that the international crackdown against terrorism could be extended to them.

The US embassy said the LTTE was engaging in activities that could jeopardise the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire which went into effect from Feb 23.—AFP