Indo-Lanka ties strong and candid: FM

India and Sri Lanka enjoy a "very candid and strong" relationship, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said, asserting that a maritime defence arrangement between the two countries to prevent arms smuggling by Tigers was "working well".

Relations between New Delhi and Colombo are at a "very high point" both politically and economically, Bogollagama said complementing the Indian leadership for responding to his country's needs.

"Today, we have a very candid and strong relationship. We are quite close to each other and the relation translates into substantive economic and political development," he said in an interview with the PTI. The coordinated defence mechanism between India and Sri Lanka in Palk Straits and seas surrounding the island nation to prevent arms smuggling by separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is "working well", he said.

Conceding that LTTE is still able to get arms, he said, "What we have to see is in the absence of an Indo-Lanka arrangement, how the LTTE would have fared."

But he asserted that the Government has been able to contain and restrict violence unleashed by the LTTE.

The Government is responding to the political needs of the country as it is clear from recent elections in the Eastern Province which would devolve power at the grassroots level, he said. Minister Bogollagama said the government was determined to resolve the ethnic issue politically and pointed to the elections in Eastern province.

Devolution of power is taking place in the province and the Government would like to do the same in areas now controlled by the LTTE, he said.