S.Lanka talks hinge on disarming renegades-rebels By Joe Ariyaratnam

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka, April 5 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers received Norway's new special peace envoy at their northern base on Wednesday, urging him to press the government to honour a pledge to disarm renegades they say are attacking them.

The Tigers accuse the military of helping a breakaway rebel commander called Col. Karuna of mounting attacks on their fighters, and have warned a new peace bid to shore up a 2002 truce and avoid a slide back to civil war hinges on disarming them.

The government agreed at talks in Geneva in February to rein in armed groups the Tigers are complaining about, but now says it can't find anyone to disarm. Nordic truce monitors have urged the state to take a better look.

"There is limited time for the government to prove they are genuine before the next round of talks and their good will," S.P. Thamilselvan, head of the Tigers' political wing, told reporters after his first meeting with new Norwegian envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer.

"The decisions and implementation in the next few days would decide the next round of talks," he added. The rebels have said they will likely attend talks on April 19-21 in Geneva, but have warned there will be no progress without active disarmament.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are locked in a bitter feud with Karuna, who was widely seen as reclusive rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran's No.2 until a split in 2004.

Analysts fear the feud could lead to another spate of deadly attacks by suspected Tigers against the military as it did in December and January and possibly spill over into a return to a civil war that killed more than 64,000 people before the 2002 ceasefire.

Hanssen-Bauer, a peace adviser at Norway's Ministry of Foreign Affairs who has taken over day-to-day oversight of the peace process from Norwegian International Development Minister Erik Solheim, said the onus was on the Tigers and the government to make the talks work.

"It's up to the parties to make use of the possibilities in Geneva. We cannot define the content nor how it would happen," Hanssen-Bauer said before leaving the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi. "I think both parties realise that peace is on the way."

The Karuna issue is expected to dominate the April talks in Switzerland. Karuna says his men will only disarm if the Tigers do too, and vows to fight back if attacked.

Karuna's band threatened this week to shoot dead Tiger supporters in the northern Jaffna peninsula unless they vacate homes and businesses appropriated from tens of thousands of Muslims the rebels forced to flee in the 1990s.

The Tigers, who want to carve out a separate homeland for minority Tamils in Sri Lanka's north and east -- where they already run a de facto state -- dismissed the threat.

"Karuna is despised by the Tamil people," Thamilselvan said. "The military is making use of Karuna as an agent to carry out abductions, killings, torture, extortion and various acts of violence against the civilian population with a view to create dissent."

Karuna's group denies having any links with the military, and says it plans to join the political mainstream and ultimately wants to displace the Tigers.