Reporters at the location say the talks began between the Tamil Tiger delegation and the Norwegians separately.

It is still not known when and if the two parties are going to have face to face talks. Government delegation is led by the head of peace secretariat Palitha Kohona while the Tamil Tiger delegation has the political leader S. P. Thamilselven as their leader.

The main agenda of the talks will be around the role of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission. Scandinavian peace monitors say it is increasingly becoming unsafe to monitor the faltering peace process in Sri Lanka.

Norwegian International development minister Erik Solheim had earlier told the media that his expectations for this round of talks are minimal.