Friday, February 24 2006 11:57 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Celigny (Switzerland): Sri Lanka's Government and Tamil Tiger rebels agreed to a new round of talks in April, after a two-day meeting here broke a three-year freeze in peace negotiations, a senior envoy said yesterday (Feb 23,2006) Norwegian peacebroker Erik Solheim told reporters that the two sides had agreed to meet again in Geneva from April 19-21.

"I'm happy to announce that the parties have agreed to discuss the ceasefire agreement," said Solheim, referring to a fragile accord reached in February 2002.

In a joint statement, negotiators from the Sri Lankan Government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam also pledged to try to halt violence which has undermined that deal.

"The government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE are committed to taking all necessary measures to ensure that there will be no intimidation, acts of violence, abductions or killings," they said.

Specificially, the LTTE pledged to ensure that there would be no attacks on government forces, while Sri Lankan authorities committed to cracking down on 'armed groups' a reference to pro-government paramilitaries.

The statement was kept down to just a few sentences, unlike the more detailed documents which emerged from previous rounds before talks were broken off in 2003.

But the very fact that there was a deal, Solheim said, "Shows the confidence during these talks. At the start of there was no confidence but confidence has built up. "