Wednesday, August 17 2005 12:54 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Colombo: Norwegian peace brokers will hold crucial talks with a top Tamil Tiger negotiator in London on Wednesday amid concerns the assassination of Sri Lanka's foreign minister could push the island back into war.

Norway's Foreign Affairs Minister Jan Peterson and his deputy Vidar Helgesen are scheduled to meet with chief rebel peace negotiator Anton Balasingham at his London home.

"Yes, the meeting is scheduled to take place," said Tom Knappskog, a spokesman from the Norwegian Embassy in Colombo. However, he declined to give details.

The Norwegians are expected to press the rebels to renounce violence in order to move the faltering peace process forward, senior officials involved in negotiations said on condition of anonymity.

The talks will be the first since Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was shot by unidentified snipers on Friday.

The United Nations Security Council strongly condemned the assassination on Wednesday as a "senseless act of terrorism."

Tiger leaders have denied government accusations that they were behind the killing of Kadirgamar, an ethnic Tamil who was one of the strongest critics of the guerrillas' two-decade rebellion. He also spearheaded a campaign to internationally ban the rebel group.

The UN Security Council said it expects Kadirgamar's murder to be "speedily investigated and the perpetrators, organizers and their sponsors brought to justice," it said in a statement.

The Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers should "implement fully the provisions of the cease-fire agreement, and to continue their dialogue in order to attain sustainable peace and stability in the country," it said.

The UN office in Colombo on Tuesday condemned vandalism at its office in the rebel heartland of Kilinochchi, where 60 people tore down UN flags flying at half-mast for Kadirgamar on Monday.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also paid tribute to Kadirgamar and said she was impressed how President Chandrika Kumaratunga and the Sri Lankan people had responded to the tragedy.

"It is the great hope of the United States that out of this tragedy people will once again commit themselves to a path to peace," said a statement from the US Embassy in Colombo on Wednesday, quoting Rice. "There can be no cause that is justified by terrorism and by violence."

The guerrillas began fighting in 1983 for an independent homeland in the north and east for Sri Lanka's ethnic minority Tamils, claiming discrimination by the majority Sinhalese. The war killed nearly 65,000 people before the 2002 ceasefire. Subsequent peace talks stalled in June 2003 over rebel demands for more autonomy.