India concerned at LTTE air attack on Lankan air base

New Delhi, Mar 28 (UNI) India today expressed concern at the terrorrist incident in Sri Lanka in which the LTTE air raided a Sri Lankan air base and asserted that New Delhi would encourage Colombo to find a solution to the issue themselves.

It also rejected the claims that the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) radar supplied by India, had failed when the LTTE launched the air attack on Monday on the Katunayake airbase.

Reports from Sri Lanka, quoting officials, said the radar, installed by India, had failed to detect the LTTE aircraft until the radar at the adjacent Bandaranaike International Airport identified them.

Foreign Secretary Shivshanker Menon said at a press conference here ''we are very concerned at the escalation of violence in Sri Lanka...The humanitarian consequences (of the incident) worry us. We should join our voice with those who hope that violence ends soon and a solution is found to the conflict. We should also see what we can do to encourage Sri Lanka to resolve the issue themselves...There is no question of the radar failing.'' He, however, said it would not be proper to ''pick on individual incident and stressed on addressing the root cause.

The Foreign Secretary said Sri Lanka had requested that the issue of terrorism be taken up.

''The leaders will have to see how we can carry forward our cooperation against terrorism...at this stage, this is one of the issues...We must stop terrorism and we need to do it together,'' he added.

SAARC had been looking at legal instruments and associations including the Mutual Legal Assistance and even the Extradition Treaties among the countries of the region.

UNI