Deal firmly with LTTE, Anura urges India

In an exclusive interview with The Hindu, Foreign Minister Anura Bandaranaike said his visit to India would strengthen ties between the two countries.

"I wanted to send a loud and clear message to the world of our [Sri Lanka-India] friendship," Minister Bandaranaike told The Hindu interviewer Amit Baruah.

"I still recall what my mother [Sirimavo Bandaranaike] said before she died. She said, remember, our best friend is India. And our friends are the Gandhis. So, with the return of the Gandhi family ... it was only logical that I come here first," the Minister added.

Bandaranaike urged India to be "very hard on the LTTE for ceasefire violations and political killings".

"India must be very emphatic to the free world that the LTTE is a terrorist organisation."

The Minister said India should "try to influence the Europeans in particular who have been misled by Norwegians...away from the LTTE", noting that "Europeans have been misinformed deliberately (about the Tigers)...the role of Norway is under severe criticism in Sri Lanka".

The Tigers must feel the heat for what they have done [the assassination of Lakshman Kadirgamar], he remarked.

He said the assassination would have a "tremendous effect" on the peace process because evidence has definitely indicated it was done by the LTTE.

"Why did they [the Tigers] choose this particular time? On the eve of Presidential elections, to kill him; it's something that puzzles a lot of us. It's very difficult for democratic politicians like us to put our mind frame into the mind frame of a terrorist killer.

We think democratically, they don't. So, why they chose [to kill Kadirgamar], and at this point, no one knows."

Participating in the interview, Peace Secretariat Chief Jayantha Dhanapala said the ceasefire has been violated 3,066 times by the LTTE up to the end of July and 136 times by the Government. "It is a very imbalanced ceasefire agreement, but we continue with it because, as a responsible Government, we cannot abrogate a ceasefire and plunge the country into conflict."

Full interview>>>