KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka has no plans for a major offensive on rebel-held territory in the country's north, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said on Thursday. Government forces have recaptured strategic parts of the island nation's east from separatist Tamil Tiger guerrillas in the past year, fanning talk that they might soon attempt to drive the Tigers out of their main stronghold in the north. "There's no plan for a major offensive in the north," Bogollagama told Reuters in an interview during a visit to Malaysia, insisting the government's main priority was to look instead for a political solution to the 24-year-old conflict. "We want the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) to return to the negotiating table." Sri Lanka's defence secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, vowed in January to attack and destroy all Tamil Tiger military assets, including those in the northern stronghold they control under the terms of a tattered 2002 truce. Tamil Tiger rebels have been fighting for an independent state in the north and east since 1983. Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict, around 4,500 in the last year alone.
