Sri Lanka's battle against terrorism will not be slowed by international financial turmoil placing pressure on the government's military budget, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said in Melbourne today.
Minister Bogollagama said the Security Forces would continue to press its latest bloody offensive against the LTTE. "We are coming to the final stages of taking on the LTTE. We are quite confident our financial resources can sustain the current engagement," Bogollagama told journalists.
Bogollagama said President Mahinda Rajapaksa had no option but to continue an offensive that gathered pace earlier this year when the government formally annulled a 2002 ceasefire, accusing the Tigers of using it to re-arm. "As far as the LTTE is concerned, we need them to lay down arms and start talking, and it's time the LTTE does that," he said. (Sachin Tendulkar 49, W.S. Laxman 42 n.o,).