Roland Buerk Colombo correspondent

The president invited the rebels to fresh peace talks and said they should begin to lay down their arms.

More than three-thousand-five-hundred people were killed in renewed fighting last year despite the 2002 ceasefire still being in place on paper.

President Mahinda Rajapakse was flown by military helicopter into Vakarai on Sri Lanka's east coast.

The small town was captured last month by Sri Lankan soldiers and commandos after weeks of fighting and artillery duels.

Vakarai was the last major bastion of the Tigers in the east to fall. They controlled it for more than ten years.

Speaking to reporters, President Mahinda Rajapakse invited the rebels to new peace talks and he said they should begin to lay down their arms.

Asked what would happen if they refused, he said the government would have to tame the Tigers.

There's been no response to the president's call for talks from the rebels who still control much of the north of the country.

Earlier they said they were not finished in the east and that their forces there have gone into what they described as "guerrilla mode".

Throughout Sri Lanka's long conflict the Tigers have never been known to go to the negotiating table from a position of weakness.