Top officials rush to Sri Lanka

New Delhi, Jun 20 (UNI) National Security Advisor (NSA) M K Narayanan, Foreign Secretary Shivshanker Menon and Defence Secretary Vijay Singh have rushed to Colombo for talks with Sri Lankan leaders on the developing situation in the island nation.

The officials who arrived in Colombo in the afternoon, met the Sri Lankan Defence Minister and are scheduled to call on President Mahinda Rajapaksa tomorrow.

The visit comes following a warning by the Sri Lankan Army Chief of a possible military solution to the ethnic conflict and the capture of LTTE chief Prabhakaran.

It also comes about a month ahead of the 15th SAARC Summit being held in Colombo.

The Sri Lankan Foreign Minister who was here last week to formally invite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to attend the Summit, said terrorism had shrunk in the island nation and out of eight districts about a year ago, it had confined to only two-and-a-half districts.

As a result, it was possible to get to the LTTE chief following the shrinking of the geographical area affected by terrorism.

UNI RB HS RN2337