April 13 (Bloomberg) -- Sri Lanka is facing ``real danger'' that violence will spread in the country after a bomb attack sparked a riot in the northeastern town of Trincomalee resulting in the deaths of at least 15 people, truce monitors said.

Violence may result ``in more innocent people dying'' unless the government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam take steps to control the unrest, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission said in an e-mailed statement late yesterday.

A bomb explosion at a market in Trincomalee yesterday that killed a soldier sparked the violence, TamilNet reported on its Web site. At least 10 ethnic Tamils and five Sinhalese were killed and about 20 Tamil shops were burned and civilians attacked by men armed with incendiary devices, it said.

Increasing violence is threatening peace talks between Sri Lanka's government and the LTTE scheduled to be held in Geneva next week. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday appealed to both sides to attend the April 19-21 talks.

At least 10 sailors, six soldiers and two police officers have been killed in mine explosions this week, in attacks blamed on the Tamil Tigers. The rebels have denied carrying out the attacks and have accused the government of failing to meet pledges to control paramilitary groups.

``The level of violence that erupted in Trincomalee reflects the worsening situation in the entire country, which primarily stems from the bad spirit and the mistrust between the two parties,'' the monitoring mission said.

Meeting With Rebels

Truce mission members, who come from five Nordic countries overseeing the cease-fire accord, will meet LTTE leaders today in Kilinochchi after holding talks earlier this week with military officials in Jaffna on ending the violence.

The army imposed a curfew late yesterday in Trincomalee after the rioting. The army said in a statement on its Web site that calm was restored in the town late yesterday.

The military blames the Tamil Tigers for the deaths of at least 28 security personnel since the government and LTTE met in Geneva in February for their first talks in three years. They agreed to endorse a cease-fire accord reached in 2002.

The two sides also pledged to take measures to prevent intimidation, acts of violence, abductions or killings. The government said it will ensure no armed groups other than its security forces carry weapons while the Tamil Tigers pledged to take measures to stop attacks on the military and police.

The SLMM said on March 26 the government and LTTE have shown a ``lack of commitment'' to the cease-fire agreement and to implementing pledges made at the February talks.

``We don't want to go back to war and violence again,'' Anton Balasingham, chief negotiator for the LTTE, said in an interview in his home outside London on April 9. ``We have to talk about ceasing from violence before we can talk about political issues.''

Aid Donors

International aid donors to Sri Lanka, led by the U.S., European Union, Japan and Norway, have made progress toward a peace settlement a condition of providing $4.5 billion in aid. The LTTE has been fighting for a separate homeland since 1983 in a conflict that has killed more than 60,000 people.

Envoys from the EU, Japan, Norway and the Netherlands met LTTE leaders earlier this week in Kilinochchi and said they are disturbed by the latest violence, TamilNet said on its Web site.

The Tamil Tigers ended peace talks in April 2003 with the government of then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The government and the rebels need to ``find ways to implement the cease-fire agreement, start rebuilding trust and lay the foundations for a lasting peace,'' Annan said in his statement, according to the UN Web site.

The rebels say Tamils are discriminated against by the majority, mostly Buddhist Sinhalese. Tamils make up less than a fifth of the South Asian island's population of 20 million people.