COLOMBO, March 27: Norway is set to arrange historic peace talks between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels at a neutral Asian venue during the first week of May, a senior minister said Wednesday.

Sri Lanka’s Constitutional Affairs Minister G. L. Peiris declined to say where exactly the talks would be held, but said they would be hosted by an Asian nation.

Official sources said Thailand was most likely to host the meeting between the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Norwegian deputy foreign minister Vidar Helgesen is due here by mid-April to prepare the ground for the meeting, the first between the government and the LTTE since the Oslo peace initiative began three years ago.

“The government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE are keen to proceed with the face-to-face discussions,” Peiris told reporters here. “Both sides agree that the time is opportune for the negotiations.

“We should rapidly commence the talks and our expectation is that it will be possible within the period of about six weeks.”

This is the first time that both sides are entering talks brokered by a Western country and hopes are high they will have a positive outcome, not least because of unprecedented international support.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who is part of an uneasy cohabitation government with her rival Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, issued a statement welcoming the announcement of talks in May.

Earlier, Kumaratunga had expressed reservations about Wickremesinghe entering into a memorandum of understanding with the Tigers to establish a ceasefire which has been in place since February 23.

However, Kumaratunga has been under international pressure to support the latest peace process and ensure it does not suffer the fate of the previous attempts to end the fighting, diplomatic sources said.

India brokered a peace deal in July 1987 but it broke down and resulted in Tiger rebels fighting Indian soldiers deployed in the island’s northeast to supervise the implementation of the peace accord.

In 1995, the government and the LTTE again held talks and observed a truce. It lasted for exactly 100 days, ending on April 19 1995 with the Tigers sinking two navy gunboats at a north-eastern port, killing 12 sailors.

The latest peace moves gathered momentum as Norwegian diplomats held discussions with the top Tamil guerrilla leader at a rebel-held area of the island’s north on Tuesday.

Peiris said initial talks between the government and the LTTE, who have been fighting for an independent homeland for the island’s Tamil minority, could focus on preparing an agenda to the substantive negotiations.

“What we will have first will be the talks about talks. It will be to prepare an agenda and decide on the sequence of the discussions as to what will be taken up first and so forth.”

In Bangkok, Thai officials and Sri Lankan diplomats said Wednesday they were discussing a proposal to hold the crucial talks between the Colombo government and the Tiger rebels in Thailand.

Meanwhile, the European Union welcomed the prospect of peace talks between Sri Lanka’s warring parties.

“They must come to the negotiating table in good faith, and with determination to achieve a lasting peace,” EU commissioner for external relations Christopher Patten said in a statement received here.

“They need to rebuild the mutual trust destroyed in decades of conflict,” he said. “The failure of past attempts teaches us that this will not be easy.”

Patten also urged the LTTE, which is designated a terrorist organisation in the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and outlawed in India, to transform itself into a political organisation.

CANADIANS’ PLEA: A visiting Canadian delegation on Wednesday urged Sri Lankans living abroad to join the international campaign supporting peace moves in the island.