The Norwegian-brokered breakthrough for the first face-to-face meeting in three years won international applause from the United States to Japan.

But the negotiations to be held in Geneva are intended only to ensure proper implementation of a ceasefire put in place in 2002 and which was on the verge of total collapse under a growing pile of corpses.

And that's all, the chief negotiator for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) insisted at the Tiger political headquarters in Kilinochchi.

"We will only talk of the smooth implementation of the ceasefire agreement," said Anton Balasingham after Wednesday's breakthrough.

Erik Solheim, Norway's minister for international development, who managed to eke out the minimalist accord, candidly added that more than one meeting might be needed to get the ceasefire back on track.

It had taken him since November just to get the warring parties to agree on a venue for the talks.

Solheim, who saw LTTE commander-in-chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, also admitted he had not obtained guarantees of a cessation of hostilities ahead of the meeting.

Any such assurances would have to come from the Geneva negotiations, he said.

Indeed, while the daily toll of bombings, shootings, abductions and attacks has dropped, the bloodshed has not totally stopped.

The LTTE on Friday accused government forces of carrying out the first killing of a rebel commander since Norway ended the deadlock in the island's peace process.

The rebels said security forces fired a rocket propelled grenade at one of their vehicles in the east on Thursday.

"The LTTE officials in Batticaloa determined that the attack came from the Sri Lanka army's 23-1 Brigade Camp in Welikande," a rebel statement said.

There was no reaction from the army or government which had expressed "major relief" over the deal following the deaths of at least 153 people since December.

Balasingham did go further than the government, saying, "We have given an assurance that there will be no acts of violence by the LTTE."

But he added that the government must also stop attacks on the rebels by its forces and paramilitaries, who were to be disarmed under the ceasefire.

Four previous attempts to negotiate a permanent peace in a conflict that has left more than 60,000 people dead have failed. The shaky ceasefire has been the summit of achievement.

The nationalist government, which relies on the support of hardline Sinhalese parties, demands that Sri Lanka remain a unitary state -- including the north and east where the Tamil minority lives.

The LTTE, which already boasts a de facto mini-state in the north with its own administration, police, courts and of course military, is fighting for full autonomy and seeks an immediate Interim Self-Governing Authority.

Major compromise will be required to reconcile the two entrenched positions.

Former LTTE cadre and ex-MP Dharamalingham Sithadthan fears the two are irreconcilable.

"A unitary state is unacceptable to the Tamil community, but the LTTE must also come down from the demand of a separate state," he told AFP.

"As long as Prabhakaran is there he is totally committed to a separate state. I don't think he will accept any other solution," said Sithadthan, who heads the Democratic People's Liberation Front.

Retired Sri Lankan army general Vipul Boteju dismisses the Geneva talks as "just eyewash".

Sithadthan agreed the LTTE could be "hoodwinking the international community" and spinning out the process.

"I don't believe in these peace talks," the general said. "We have been talking peace since Thimpu," in 1985, when the sides met in the Bhutanese capital.

"There can be no solution acceptable to the Sinhalese majority while Prabhakaran is alive," he said, branding the LTTE supremo a "murderous dictator".

"We have to get him. There is no other way out. We made the mistake of trying to grab land ... You go after him."

Prabhakaran has survived government claims to have killed him in 1993, 1995 and 1996. The Indian military reported him dead in 1987.

The December 2004 tsunami disaster also failed to finish off the LTTE leader, despite Colombo officials repeatedly reporting him among the 31,00 dead.

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