Norway's special envoy on Sri Lanka's faltering peace bid with the Tamil Tigers, Jon Hanssen- Bauer arrived in the island Tuesday afternoon in a bid to salvage the process, government officials said..

Hanssen-Bauer arrived at the Colombo International Airport around 3:00 p.m. local time (0930 GMT), airport officials said.

His main task would be to end an impasse on the proposed talks in Geneva between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels and the government scheduled for April 24-25.

Officials said the Norwegian envoy was to hold talks with the Nordic truce monitors, Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) later in the evening.

His visit is aimed at persuading the Tiger rebels to attend the talks after the rebels said that they would not attend talks until the government took action to disarm paramilitary groups allegedly colluding with the government troops.

The Tigers, who has been accused of stepping up violence against the government troops, rejected Saturday an international truce monitors supervised sea journey of their Eastern Province cadres to the north intended to be part of the Geneva preparations.

The government officials said that Hanssen-Bauer would take up the issue of talks as well as government accusations of the Tiger violence against the troops and the rebel complaints of violence against them by government sponsored paramilitary groups.

The escalating violence in Sri Lanka has claimed over 60 lives since April 7.

He is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake on Wednesday before traveling to the rebel held Kilinochchi district on Thursday to meet with the LTTE leadership.

The LTTE spokesman Daya Master told reporters that their decision to go to Geneva would very much depend on the outcome of the talks with Hanssen-Bauer.

The Geneva round one talks in February ended with both sides agreeing to refrain from violence.

But the Tigers has accused the government of not keeping the Geneva pledge to disarm the paramilitaries. The government, however, has accused the Tigers of reneging on the pledge made to stop violence against the government forces in the Northern and Eastern provinces.

Truce monitoring group the SLMM blamed both sides for resorting to politics jeopardizing the larger issue of peace and harmony in the island.

More than 64,000 people had been killed in Sri Lanka's separatist armed conflict until February 2002 when the Norwegian brokered a ceasefire agreement between the two sides.

Source: Xinhua