NEW DELHI - India is concerned about information that a Tamil rebel group in neighbouring Sri Lanka has built an airstrip and acquired aircraft, Foreign Minister Natwar Singh said in remarks published on Saturday.
Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were believed to be getting more aircraft, the minister said in an interview with The Hindu newspaper.
“We are concerned about the LTTE having built an airstrip and having two aeroplanes and there’s news about more coming,” Singh said, but did not elaborate.
Sri Lanka told neighbouring countries recently it was worried about the guerrillas acquiring flying capability while the two sides observed an Oslo-brokered truce that has been in effect since February 23, 2002.
Colombo said it had information that the guerrillas had built an airstrip in LTTE-held Iranamadu in the country’s north and that they had acquired two light aircraft. It said this would violate the ceasefire agreement and pose a threat to national security.
New Delhi armed, trained and provided safe haven to Sri Lankan Tamil separatists in the mid-1980s, but moved to disarm them after a July 1987 bilateral peace pact with Colombo.
The LTTE repudiated the peace plan and ended up fighting Indian troops who withdrew after a 32-month acrimonious deployment that saw 1,200 of their men killed in action against the Tigers.
Since then, India has concentrated mainly on pushing trade and economic ties with its southern neighbour.
Earlier this month, top civil servants of Sri Lanka and India met in Colombo to review bilateral relations and discussed “defence matters” as well as efforts to boost trade.
Sri Lanka proposed a defence cooperation pact with India in October 2003. There has been no final agreement.
India and Sri Lanka entered into a free trade agreement in 19
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