Norway's Foreign Minister Jan Petersen cut short his peace mission and flew to Cairo for Yasser Arafat's funeral yesterday, with no prospect of ending a 19-month deadlock in face-to-face talks between the government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"High expectations, no major breakthrough," said the Tiger's website on the latest Norwegian initiative to save the island's troubled peace process.

The rebel's chief peace negotiator, Anton Balasingham, said the Tigers wanted talks to resume on the basis of their plan for self-rule and rejected Sri Lankan government demands to start parallel talks on a final settlement.

"This position of ours, we are told by the facilitators, would be conveyed to the president... and a feedback provided to us in course of time," Balasingham was quoted as saying on the website.

"It is only after receiving such a response, we would comment on the feasibility of early resumption of talks or otherwise."

After a second round of talks between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Petersen, the president's office said in a statement the Norwegians had briefed her on their meeting with the Tiger leadership and their views on resuming talks.