COLOMBO, July 1: A top Norwegian envoy rounded off talks with Sri Lankan leaders on Thursday but his second mission in a month to salvage the island's peace bid ended without results, officials said.

Special envoy Erik Solheim met with President Chandrika Kumaratunga on Thursday, a day after talks with the Tamil Tiger rebels in the island's north on reviving talks stalled since April 2003, officials said.

"The Norwegian delegation undertook to continue the process of consultations on outstanding issues with a view to bringing both parties into direct negotiations," Kumaratunga's office said in a statement.

Solheim told reporters here Wednesday that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) made it clear that the issue of their breakaway commander, V. Muralitharan, better known as Karuna, must be resolved before peace talks.

The LTTE has accused the military of supporting Karuna who led an unprecedented split in the Tiger movement in March and went underground in April after disbanding some 5,000 to 6, 000 fighters under him.

"The president rejected the publicly aired allegations by the LTTE that the government had authorised the Sri Lankan military activities in the Eastern Province in support of the Karuna faction," Kumaratunga's statement said.

"She expressed confidence that the ... army will continue to abide by the ceasefire," the statement added. "She reiterated the government's commitment to achieving a lasting peace and maintaining the ceasefire agreement."

The Tigers have launched a boycott of meetings with the Sri Lankan military on the February 2002 truce until government forces end their alleged harbouring of Karuna. Sri Lanka's new army chief expressed embarrassment on Thursday at a government spokesman's statement last week that elements of the military may have supported Karuna without the knowledge of the island's leadership.

"I can't talk about the past, but I can tell you that I will ensure that no one will act on their own in the future," Lieutenant General Shantha Kottegoda said. Solheim made a similar mission in late May, but the two sides disagreed on the scope of the agenda for future negotiations.-AFP

Our Correspondent adds: Sri Lanka's new army commander said on Thursday that the government's admission that the military was involved in the LTTE's internal conflict with its renegade leader was an embarrassment to the army as well as a threat to the peace process."

Lt-Gen Shantha Kottegoda, who took his duties as the 17th Army Commander on Thursday, at a press conference said that the controversy regarding the military and the escape of the dissident LTTE leader Karuna to Colombo was serious threat to the ongoing peace process.

"This has broken the LTTE's trust in the army. The fact that the government admitted that the military was involved in assisting Karuna will mean that we have to prove that stand of the military with regard to the issue," the new army commander said.

His statement comes a week after Minister of Media, Mangala Samaraweera, admitted that there were certain elements in the military who assisted Karuna. The new army commander, who was serving in the east, a stronghold Karuna, is reputed to have a good rapport with LTTE's main faction of Vellupillai Prabhakaran.