Fresh fighting kills 27 in Lanka ahead of summit
Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pranab Mukherjee (R) talks with Nepal's Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala during the 15th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc ) meeting in Colombo yesterday. Ministers from the Saarc countries are attending the meeting to discuss regional issues like terrorism, food, drug offences, and arms smuggling.Photo: AFP
Sri Lankan troops killed 25 Tamil Tiger rebels while two soldiers died in combat in the island's north, the defence ministry said Friday, as Colombo prepared to host a South Asian summit.
Troops fought pitched battles with the guerrillas on Thursday in Vavuniya, Mannar, Mullaittivu and Weli Oya and recovered arms from fleeing rebels, the ministry said.
The clashes raised the number of rebels killed by government troops since January to 5,436 while 478 soldiers have died in combat during the same period, according to a defence ministry toll.
Casualty figures cannot be verified as the ministry blocks access to journalists from visiting the frontlines.
Both sides remained locked in combat as leaders from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) nations began arriving in Colombo on Friday for the weekend summit.
Colombo, which believes it has the upper hand in the conflict after driving the rebels from their eastern stronghold, has sharply beefed up security in and around the capital of 650,000 residents for the eight-nation Saarc meeting.
The fighting is taking place 250km north of here, but there has recently been a string of deadly attacks on Colombo that the government has blamed on the rebels.
In late July, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) offered a unilateral ceasefire for the summit, but Colombo brushed off the proposal and stepped up attacks against rebel positions in the north.
The Tigers are fighting for a separate Tamil homeland in the majority Sinhalese nation.
Meanwhile, Pakistan, a key supplier of small arms to Sri Lanka, has proposed a defence pact to boost military cooperation between the two countries, Pakistani officials said yesterday.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi made the offer to his Sri Lankan counterpart Rohitha Bogollegama on the sidelines of a South Asian meeting in Colombo, the officials said.
"A (draft) defence cooperation agreement has been given to Sri Lanka," said a senior Pakistani official who did not wish to be named.
India has been uneasy about the growing military clout of its arch-rival Pakistan in Sri Lanka, which New Delhi regards as being within its sphere of geo-political influence.
Islamabad is already an important supplier of small arms and ammunition to Sri Lankan security forces, who are battling separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, and Pakistan is also training a large number of Sri Lankan military personnel.
Indian diplomats have privately raised concerns about closer defence ties between Pakistan and Sri Lanka, which also buys military hardware from China and Israel as well as from former Soviet Union states.
"We want Sri Lanka to quickly move on that (the draft agreement)," the Pakistan diplomatic official said, adding the pact was intended to bring the two sides closer.
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