Norwegian envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer was told that his planned visit to the rebel-held town of Kilinochchi Tuesday would not meet with Colombo's approval, said Palitha Kohona, the top Sri Lankan official coordinating with Norway.

"The cabinet of ministers will review the government's relations with the Tigers on Wednesday," Kohona told AFP. "Until then, we don't want the Norwegians to have any contacts with them."

Sri Lanka's government faces growing pressure from nationalists and key allies to declare the Tamil Tiger rebels a terrorist group and end Norwegian-backed peace efforts, officials said yesterday.

Anti-Tiger groups held rallies and put up posters in the capital over the weekend demanding that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) be banned following a Friday assassination attempt by suspected rebels against the defence secretary.

"The government discussed the issue on Saturday and there was no finality on the matter," a top government source said. "There is a strong feeling that we can't ask others to ban the Tigers when we ourselves have not done it."

A ban on the Tigers was lifted in 2002 ahead of the first round of peace talks with them, in line with the Norwegian-backed peace initiative. The move paved the way for a ceasefire in the bitter ethnic conflict that has claimed more than 60,000 lives since 1972.

But amid an escalation of violence in 2006, the 25-member European Union banned the Tigers in May this year. The guerrillas face bans in several other countries, including the US and Britain.

Officials here said Sri Lanka outlawing the Tigers could mean an end to the current peace process.

The nationalist JHU -- or National Heritage Party of Buddhist monks, which is a key ally of the government -- staged a demonstration Saturday demanding an end to the current peace process and a ban on the LTTE.

The Marxist JVP, or People's Liberation Front, made the same demand of President Mahinda Rajapakse.

One of Norway's top peace envoys, Jon Hanssen-Bauer, was currently in Sri Lanka to hold talks with both sides in a bid to salvage the teetering peace process, diplomats said.

Hanssen-Bauer is due to travel to the rebel-held town of Kilinochchi Monday for talks with the LTTE. Press reports speculated he had been asked to cancel his visit, but there was no immediate word from the Norwegians here to the effect.

A Friday suicide bomb attack against Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse, the president's brother, came as Hannsen-Bauer was in Colombo meeting with officials. Two guards were killed and 14 others were wounded, but Rajapakse escaped unhurt.

The attack followed a speech by rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran on Monday that the Oslo-arranged 2002 truce was "defunct" and that he was resuming his campaign for an independent homeland for minority Tamils.