Sri Lanka vowed yesterday to persevere in efforts for a negotiated peace with Tamil Tiger rebels while maintaining military pressure, which the government said is bringing results.
Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said Sri Lanka's military had rooted out Tiger rebels from the east of the country in operations that complement efforts to negotiate a solution to the long-running conflict.
"With the exception of a few jungle hideouts, most of the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka, which was until recently terrorized by the LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] has been rid of this menace," Bogollagama told the Shangri-La Dialogue of senior Asian defence and security officials and experts.
The LTTE's 35-year campaign for independence has claimed more than 60,000 lives.
"We see no contradiction in dealing firmly with the scourge of terrorism perpetrated by the LTTE, even as the government of Sri Lanka seeks to evolve a consensus for a negotiated political settlement to the armed conflict," he said.
That is why the government sought in recent months to battle the Tigers, "to convince the group that it cannot expect to achieve a military victory," he said.
Government troops and rebels have been locked in combat following the breakdown of a 2002 Norwegian-brokered truce.
Official sources in Sri Lanka said yesterday the rebels had launched a major attack on a military gun position in the country's north, wounding at least 15 soldiers.
Security forces were keeping up air, ground and sea attacks against the Tigers in the island's northern and eastern regions.
"There is no offensive by the government," Bogollagama told reporters on the sidelines of the conference. "We are only trying to have a limited engagement when it is needed ... The government never fired the first bullet."
On Friday, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse offered to open peace negotiations but the rebels have insisted they would not resume peace talks unless the government halted military action.
Rajapakse would enter negotiations with the rebels if they agreed to resume where they left off in October, his spokesman Chandrapala Liyanage said.
"I am a total democrat and I believe in a peaceful negotiated settlement," he quoted the president as saying.
Bogollagama reiterated the government was ready to talk.
"We have said so and we are saying it now. We will continue to engage LTTE at talks and we will expect them to respond and come early for talks," he said.
In his speech to the conference, Bogollagama called the Tigers a threat to shipping in the Indian Ocean and appealed for global action against the guerrilla group.
He said the LTTE were one of the few "terrorist organizations" in the world with a proven maritime capability.
Along with their Sea Tigers naval combat unit, they owned a substantial number of ships which carry out traditional trading and also smuggled military hardware, he said, accusing them of "numerous acts of maritime terrorism."
A top Sri Lankan defense official told reporters in Singapore that authorities had foiled a potentially devastating attack on Colombo when they intercepted a truck laden with 1,052kg of explosives on Friday.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
RSS