By IANS
Colombo : Sri Lankan Navy Commander Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda has said that the cooperation between the navies of Sri Lanka and India was “extremely successful” in countering the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
“Cooperation with India is extremely successful in countering the LTTE. Every year, the Indian Coast Guard and the Sri Lankan Navy hold four bilateral discussions. We are conducting coordinated patrols with the Indian navy as well,” Karannagoda told The Colombo Post weekly Tuesday, on the eve of the formal end of the ceasefire agreement with the LTTE.
He claimed that the Sri Lankan Navy had destroyed more than 10,000 tonnes of material belonging to the Tamil Tiger rebels, which could be used for a war, in the seas off Sri Lanka in the last one year.
“Within one year we have destroyed eight floating warehouses which had carried more than 10,000 tonnes of war-like material, including artillery, mortars, dismantled parts of three aircraft, bullet proof vehicles, underwater delivery vehicles, scuba diving sets and radar,” Karannagoda said.
“We have broken their backbone by destroying their supply vessels and floating warehouses,” the navy chief said.
He claimed that the Sri Lankan Navy had destroyed almost all the vessels of the LTTE, which could have helped it sustain the conflict.
The LTTE had stationed “floating warehouses” 2,800 km away from the Sri Lankan shore on the high seas. Whenever a need for munitions arose, these floating warehouses, which were big ships, used to come and anchor about 300 km from the shore and have their lethal cargo transferred to land with the help of smaller trawlers.
“The navy has put an end to this type of arms smuggling,” Karannagoda said.