By Namini Wijedasa
Norwegian ambassador Jon Westborg met Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar for talks yesterday, informed diplomatic sources said.

Details were not immediately available of the talks, held hours after Westborg returned to the country from a visit to Norway. The Norwegian embassy had no comment.

Sri Lankan political sources said, however, that Kadirgamar had been expected to raise with Westborg the government’s latest offer for a mutually agreed ceasefire with the LTTE, a possibility that Sri Lanka had vehemently shot down just months ago.

On Saturday, Kadirgamar said that discussions were going on between the government and the Norwegians about the most effective way of moving the negotiations and the peace process forward. It was the latest of rare references made by the government to the beleaguered peace process, buried under political intrigue and bargaining for the past few months.

Meanwhile, the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) which withdrew all support to President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s government after expressing disappointment at the slow — or non-movement — of the peace process, said yesterday that they were hopeful there would be progress this time around.

"If it’s true that there are meetings, it is a good development," said Veerasingham Anandasangaree, TULF acting president. He urged the government to take the peace process seriously.