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Sri Lanka's warring parties were bracing for talks aimed at saving a tattered truce, but arranging next weekend's parley is becoming a logistical “minefield” that could blow up before the meeting begins.
Peace broker Norway's breakthrough last week, when it coaxed the rebel Tamil Tigers to talks, appears to have been undermined by seemingly dry administrative details that have taken on serious political meaning, diplomats say.
Both sides will not even sleep under the same roof in Geneva as they had done during previous talks.
In addition, neither Colombo nor the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have named their delegations, casting further suspicion about their willingness to stop the spiralling bloodshed.
An earlier round of peace talks in June was scuttled when the LTTE refused to negotiate with a Sri Lankan delegation that was considered too junior by the Tigers.
Both sides had already arrived in Oslo, Norway, for the meeting when the rebels pulled out of negotiations.
“There is an enormous amount of mistrust between the parties and arranging the details is a minefield,” said a foreign diplomat involved in the talks, which are set to be held October 28-29.
The biggest immediate obstacle is how to get LTTE delegates from the rebel-held north to Sri Lanka's international airport in Colombo, government officials have said.
The 330-kilometer (206-mile) transfer from the Tiger town of Kilinochchi is fraught with security concerns amid a surge in retaliatory strikes that have left hundreds dead in recent weeks.
The LTTE delegation “will be going (to Geneva) only on the guarantees given by the international community,” the LTTE's political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan said in a statement last week, that is seen partially as a demand for security.
Government officials have reportedly promised safe passage through government-held territory, but the details of the trip have yet to be worked out.
Both sides have come under heavy diplomatic pressure to meet as the international community grows increasingly concerned over Sri Lanka's dangerous swerve towards all-out war.
An upsurge in violence has left more than 2,300 dead since December, with some 250 people killed last week alone in suicide bombings and other attacks.
Even without an agenda for the meeting, Sri Lanka's donors want the government and LTTE to at least sit down together in a bid to put a halt to the recent bloodletting.
“It is time to reverse the negative momentum. It is time to take a step in the right direction and it is time for parties to come to the talks to make a new beginning,” said US envoy Richard Boucher at the end of a two-day visit here Friday.
The US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs was one of three foreign envoys to make last-ditch bids in the past week for peace talks and salvage a failing 2002 ceasefire.
Japanese envoy Yasushi Akashi and Norwegian peace-broker Jon Hanssen-Bauer were also in Sri Lanka to step up pressure on the two sides.
But even as the talks appear to be on track, Sri Lanka's conflict grinds on with reports of daily shelling and gunfire. At least two sea clashes have erupted since Friday, with the government claiming heavy rebel losses.
The Tigers, who have said they are only attending the Geneva talks in deference to the international community, upped the war rhetoric Saturday with a threat to extend their campaign island-wide.
“If the Sri Lankan government wants a war, they will have it everywhere in the island,” the LTTE's military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiriyan said.
“If they want peace, Tamil people must feel they have peace,” he added.
More than 60,000 people have been killed in the drawn out ethnic conflict since 1972 when the LTTE was formed to demand a separate state for the island's Tamil minority in this majority Sinhalese island of 19.5 million people.
