NEW DELHI: India`s Maoist fighters announced on Tuesday that they will be unilaterally suspending their `armed struggle` and are ready for dialogue with authorities, following the government`s all-out offensive to crush the decades-long conflict.

`Because of the changed world order and national situation, and because of the continuous appeals from the Prime Minister, Home Minister, and senior police officials, we are deciding to suspend armed struggle,` a spokesman for the Communist Party of India (Maoist) rebel group said in a statement.

`We are ready to start dialogue` with the government, added the spokesman.

There was no immediate government response to the Maoist announcement.

India is waging an intense offensive against the last remaining traces of the Naxalite rebellion, named after the village in the foothills of the Himalayas where the Maoist-inspired guerilla movement began nearly six decades ago.

More than 12,000 rebels, soldiers and civilians have been killed since a handfulofvillagers rose up against their feudal lords there in 1967.-AFP