COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels said they conveyed a secret message to President Chandrika Kumaratunga through peace broker Norway on ending a 19-month deadlock on negotiations.
The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said the undisclosed message was given to Foreign Minister Jan Petersen during a rare meeting with Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran on Thursday.
"We have conveyed a message to her (the president) on how to take the peace process forward," LTTE's chief peace negotiator Anton Balasingham was quoted as saying on the pro-rebel Tamilnet website.
"But the Norwegians have requested us not to speak about it to the press until they discuss it with the Sri Lankan president."
Petersen is due to return to Colombo from the rebel-held town of Kilinochchi, 330 kilometres ( 206 miles) north of here for a second round of talks with Kumaratunga before leaving the island early Friday.
During late-night talks with Kumaratunga Wednesday, Petersen was asked to convey the government's desire to resume direct negotiations with the LTTE at the earliest opportunity, a statement from Kumaratunga's office said.
"The foreign minister undertook to convey the president's views to the LTTE leadership when he meets them ... and stressed that this was an opportune moment to renew direct talks between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE," the statement said.
It said Kumaratunga reiterated her commitment to maintain the Oslo-brokered truce with the Tigers, in place since February 2002, and wanted a peaceful end to a conflict which claimed over 60,000 lives between 1972 and 2002.
Petersen was accompanied by his deputy Vidar Helgesen and special envoy Erik Solheim.
"The Norwegians have only modest expectations," a source close to the peace process said ahead of the meetings. "We are not expecting a breakthrough on resuming the direct negotiations."
Solheim arrived here ahead of Petersen's three-day visit which began Wednesday and has already met Sri Lankan leaders.
The London-based Balasingham returned to the island with his wife Adele, also a Tigers negotiator, ahead of the meeting with Petersen.
The Tamilnet Web site quoted Balasingham as saying in Kilinochchi that urgent humanitarian needs of the Tamil minority must be addressed soon.
"Once the talks begin they (Colombo) can bring their ideas to the negotiating table," Balasingham said. "Hence we had a long discussion with the Norwegians about how to restart the talks early."
The Oslo-brokered peace talks between the Colombo government and the LTTE have been on hold since the guerrillas walked out in April last year.
The Colombo government has accused the Tigers of killing more than 250 of their rivals since the ceasefire went into effect.
Diplomatic sources said building trust between the two sides was a key challenge for the Norwegians.
Norway said in a statement last week the purpose of Petersen's visit was to ask the two sides "whether they wish to move towards resuming negotiations."
Petersen said in the statement that he did not have high expectations but it was important to keep engaging with the parties concerned.
The Tigers and the Colombo government held six rounds of face-to-face negotiations between September 2002 and March 2003 before the talks stalled.
The rebels said last week they had not abandoned their "right to secede" despite agreeing at the third round of talks to explore a federal solution to the conflict.
Four previous attempts to end the fighting ended in failure and led to more bloodshed.
11/11/2004 - 15:33 GMT - AFP