Govt, Tigers to hold talks

Norwegian chief mediator Vidar Helgesen said no decision had been made on the exact date or location of the talks although the rebels said they would be held in Oslo "in a couple of weeks."

"We reached an agreement to hold talks on the ceasefire. The location and the date have not been decided," Helgesen told AFP in Oslo.

The Norwegian Foreign Ministry later said the meeting "will take place shortly," but did not give a venue.

Scandinavian truce monitors had warned that the assassination of foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar last Friday was a major setback for the truce and could jeopardise the entire peace process.

The government has blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for the assassination but the rebels have denied responsibility. Kadirgamar had been a vociferous critic of the Tigers.

The Tigers and the Colombo government had their last high-level contact in March 2003 in Hakone, Japan when they had their sixth round of peace talks since starting negotiations in September 2002 after 60,000 deaths in three decades of war.

In April 2003, the Tigers refused to attend the seventh round of talks after accusing Colombo of trying to sideline them in efforts to raise money abroad in support of the island's peace bid aimed at ending three decades of fighting.

The pro-rebel Tamilnet website quoted the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's London-based chief negotiator Anton Balasingham as saying that they wanted to discuss the implementation of the truce that went into effect from February 23, 2002.

"The LTTE's theoretician (Anton Balasingham) revealed that the talks, facilitated by the Norwegians, would be held in Oslo within the next couple of weeks," the Tamilnet website said.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen had proposed the face-to-face talks with the Sri Lankan government during a meeting with Balasingham at his home in London on Wednesday on his way back from attending the funeral of Kadirgamar in Colombo.

"The LTTE leader has positively considered the Norwegian proposals and agreed to send a high-level delegation to participate in the talks with the Sri Lanka government," the website quoted Balasingham as saying.