Britain Monday asked its former colony Sri Lanka to end its military campaign and resume peace talks with separatist Tamil Tiger guerrillas.
Britain's junior foreign minister, Kim Howells, said here that London was worried about growing rights abuses and an escalation in the conflict, which has left scores of combatants dead on both sides.
"The situation in Sri Lanka looks darker now than my last visit in February, where there were many hopes of an all-party political solution that would create a basis for future talks. That looks further away now," Howells told reporters.
Howells said he shared his concerns with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse at the start of his two-day visit to reinforce Britain's support for a negotiated settlement of the conflict.
"I told President Rajapakse that Britain stands ready to offer its skills in peace building.... I told him I know of no conflict that was resolved through military means."
The minister's concerns came as senior defence officials said Sri Lanka's latest military campaign against the Tiger rebels could go on for another three years and experts warned the conflict was taking its toll on the economy.
"At the end of the day, you need a political solution to meet the aspirations of the Tamil people," Howells said, referring to Sri Lanka's 35-year-old ethnic conflict, which has claimed more than 60,000 lives.
More than 5,000 people have been killed amid an upsurge in fighting since December 2005, despite the two sides agreeing to a Norwegian-brokered truce in February 2002.
Howells, who came to deliver a letter personally written by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to President Rajapakse, also met with high ranking government officials and Norwegian diplomats on Monday.
Days ahead of his visit, the government evicted hundreds of ethnic Tamils staying in cheap hostels in Colombo at gun point and bussed them to a detention centre in the northern town of Vavuniya.
The move was condemned around the world. Rajapakse subsequently invited Tamils back to the city and ordered disciplinary action against the police.
Such events should not happen again, he said, stressing that the government should make an effort to clean up its rights record.
International human rights organisations have said that more than 1,000 people have "disappeared" or are suspected to have been killed by security forces in the past 15 months.
Rights activists have already called for foreign travel bans on Sri Lankan officials implicated in rights abuses.
The International Independent Group of Eminent Persons said Monday that Colombo was not transparent in its systems of probing rights abuses.
"Sri Lanka runs the risk of isolation," Howells said, referring to growing international concerns over rights abuses in the island.
"It is very important Sri Lanka is seen to have a human rights record that is clean," he said. "Human rights is the prime test of whether or not a state conducts itself with modern values."
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