By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A 2002 cease-fire between Sri Lanka's government and ethnic Tamil rebels that had all but collapsed in renewed fighting over the past two years officially ended Wednesday after the government pulled out of the agreement.
Though scrapping the truce has little direct impact on the already raging war, the Cabinet's unanimous decision to end the deal was criticized by peace mediators and foreign governments as a move that would make it even more difficult to end the decades-old conflict.
In the two weeks since the government notified officials from Norway, a key broker of the 2002 agreement, that it would end the cease-fire Wednesday, more than 300 people have been killed in violence along the front lines in the north, according to military figures.