President Mahinda Rajapakse would enter negotiations with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) if they agreed to resume where they left off in October 2006, his spokesman Chandrapala Liyanage told AFP.

"I am ready to talk even today in the present circumstances," he quoted the president as saying.

"I am a total democrat and I believe in a peaceful negotiated settlement."

The Tigers last week insisted that they would not resume Norwegian-brokered peace talks unless the Sri Lankan government halted its military action.

Security forces are keeping up air, ground and sea attacks against the Tigers in the island's northern and eastern regions.

At least seven people have been killed in the embattled regions since Thursday, officials said.

Security was also reinforced against Tiger bomb attacks in the capital. Two blasts in the past week killed nine people and wounded 44. Both blasts were blamed on Tiger rebels.

Hundreds of minority Tamils were Friday asked to leave the capital Colombo and return to their villages -- some located in conflict areas -- as they posed a "threat to national security," police chief Victor Perera said.

"Those who are loitering in Colombo will be sent home. We will give them transport," Perera said. "We are doing this to protect the people and because of a threat to national security."

Perera, a member of the majority Sinhalese community, denied media reports that 56 lodges, or hostels, in Colombo had been asked to evict Tamil guests.

"We have asked lodge owners to send away suspicious people or those who can't produce valid identification papers."

Thousands of Tamils from violence-ridden areas arrive in the capital monthly in the hope of obtaining passports to travel abroad for employment or secure political asylum overseas.

They are required to register with the police to travel from embattled regions under a de facto visa system in place to prevent rebel infiltrations of the capital.

Despite the worsening security climate, President Rajapakse said he was keen on a negotiated end to the Tamil separatist conflict, which has claimed over 60,000 lives in the past 35 years.

The president noted that he had not ordered troops to enter the rebel-held Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu regions despite stepped up fighting and said he was still abiding by the Oslo-arranged truce.

"The ceasefire agreement has been violated 8,000 to 9,000 times, but we have still not given up the ceasefire," Rajapakse said.

More than 5,000 people have been killed in a new wave of violence since Rajapakse came to power in November 2005 and officials privately admit that the truce is all but dead.

Since then two rounds of peace talks have ended in failure and led to more fighting with the rebels, who want independence.

The Tigers, who have been on the defensive since April last year, turned tables on the military in March by using light aircraft for the first time to attack military and economic targets.

The air raids prompted the authorities to shut the only international airport at night. On Friday they announced the suspension of domestic air services amid fears of more rebel attacks.