President Mahinda Rajapakse has summoned members of his Sri Lanka Freedom Party and asked them to get ready for elections, the Sunday Observer said, quoting unnamed sources close to the president.

The newspaper said he told party workers that elections would likely "be held before the year is up" to help pave the way for consensus on peace talks with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"It is more importantly an imperative for any move towards advancing a constitutional package with a view to addressing the country's conflict," the newspaper said, citing the unnamed sources.

Rajapakse narrowly won the presidency last November and inherited a parliament where his party first secured power with the help of a Marxist group to form a minority government in April 2004.

Parliamentary elections are not due until 2010, but the president can use his executive power to dissolve the legislature and call a snap election after parliament sits for one year.

Rajapakse has been trying to rope in the right-wing United National Party, the main opposition group, while also wooing Marxists to join his party.

The Marxist JVP, or People's Liberation Front, has stayed outside of the cabinet and is opposed to Norwegian-backed peace efforts to solve a decades-old ethnic conflict with Tamil rebels that has left more than 60,000 dead since 1972.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka's peace broker Norway is set for a fresh attempt to end a seven-month deadlock in talks after the warring parties agreed to meet, diplomats said yesterday.

Special envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer will begin meetings with political leaders on Monday during a four-day visit aimed at jump-starting stalled negotiations between the government and Tiger rebels, diplomats said.

"He will start the talks with Sri Lankan government officials tomorrow and then proceed to have talks with the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam)," Norwegian embassy spokesman Erik Nurnberg said.

Diplomatic sources said Hanssen-Bauer's visit was likely to be followed by another from Erik Solheim, Norway's International Development Minister and Sri Lanka's top peace broker, who will try to arrange talks in Oslo later this month.

"There is fresh hope after the government's announcement last week that they had the commitments they were looking for from the Tigers before sitting round a table," a diplomatic source said.

Rebels from the LTTE have stepped up ambushes and land mine attacks since December and the attacks peaked with a suicide assassination bid against army chief Sarath Fonseka in April.

The military has retaliated heavily, using air, artillery and naval power to subdue the ethnic Tamil rebels across the island's embattled northern and eastern regions.