By Prensa Latina,
New Delhi : India will train Sri Lanka officers in its military academies and will also provide it with more defensive weapons, The Time of India newspaper reported Tuesday.
In 2008-2009 alone, over 500 Sri Lankan officers and other ranks will receive training in institutions ranging from Counter-Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School at Vairengte (Mizoram) to School of Artillery at Devlali (Maharashtra), apart from undergoing specialised naval courses in gunnery, navigation, communication and anti-submarine warfare, say sources.
Though India has not gone ahead with a long-pending military pact with Sri Lanka due to domestic “Tamil sensitivities”, it has reversed its earlier policy of not supplying arms to Colombo.
Sri Lanka government is engaged in this moment in an offensive against separatists rebels from a Tamil armed organization in the north of the Indian Ocean’s Island.
The eastern province has already been released from the control of the Liberation Tigers for the Tamil Eelam (LTTE) but the mission is more complicated in the northern region, main bastion of the rebel forces.