We got maximum support from India to crush LTTE: Sri Lanka

Colombo, Oct 12 (IANS) Charging that 'some foreign elements' were trying to disrupt the ongoing development activities in Sri Lanka, a senior advisor to President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said that the island nation has 'got maximum support from India to crush' the Tamil Tiger rebels, a media report here said.

Senior Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapaksa, who is known as the political strategist of the ruling coalition government, in an interview with the state-run Sunday Observer newspaper has said that Colombo was getting 'adequate support' from its foreign friends to defeat terrorism and carry forward development activities.

'The government, which has destroyed the LTTE, is getting adequate support from our foreign friends. Here, the support from our neighbour is very vital. India has been always with us. We got maximum support from India to crush the LTTE,' the top presidential aide, who is also the younger brother of President Rajapaksa, has been quoted as saying.

Amid various protests in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, India's National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan summoned Sri Lanka's Deputy High Commissioner in India last week to convey New Delhi's 'grave concern and unhappiness at the growing casualties of unarmed Tamil civilians as a result of the military action'.

Answering a question in this regard, Basil Rajapaksa said that the ruling coalition 'is seriously considering these concerns (of India) now' with President Rajapaksa already instructing his secretary 'to take some measures to address their concerns'.

'Their (India's) main concern is about the civilians in the north and the other is the issues faced by the fisher-folk. We have already taken serious note of addressing these issues and if there are some sort of shortcomings, we will address them soon,' Rajapaksa has been quoted as saying.

He said the government has undertaken development activities in 36,000 villages at a time when 'the security forces are in the process of uniting the country by defeating LTTE terrorism'.

'As total development is taking place in the east and the liberated areas of the north, some pro-LTTE external forces are trying to disrupt this development. They do not want Sri Lanka to stand on its own,' Rajapaksa said.

Basil Rajapaksa, however, refused to identify those elements.

'Identification of these elements is the biggest problem. They come in different faces, but we know there is one single face behind all these elements. That is the LTTE,' he said.