Norway clinches breakthrough in Sri Lanka peace bid, talks soon

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels Friday agreed to lift a 30-month deadlock in the Norwegian-brokered peace bid and open face-to-face talks with the Colombo government to salvage their troubled truce.







Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels Friday agreed to lift a 30-month deadlock in the Norwegian-brokered peace bid and open face-to-face talks with the Colombo government to salvage their troubled truce. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) told peace broker Norway that they will accept urgent talks on the implementation of the ceasefire that was severely strained following last week's assassination of the Foreign Minister.

Norway's chief mediator Vidar Helgesen said no decision had been made on the exact date or location of upcoming talks although the rebels said it would be in Oslo "in a couple of weeks.

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

"The LTTE's theoretician (An