President Holds Cordial Talks With Indian Visitors
A HIGH level Indian delegation comprising Indian National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon called on President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the Temple Trees yesterday (24). President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Indian officials held cordial discussions over lunch on matters of mutual interest to both countries. During this meeting which lasted for about two hours, President Rajapaksa explained to the Indian visitors the success of the humanitarian operation to rescue the civilians held hostage by the LTTE in the Vanni.
CONTRARY to biased reports circulating in the international media and among NGO and INGO circles the rescue mission that is being conducted successfully in the Vanni has been most humane, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa told the Daily News yesterday. According to information from ground sources in Puthumattalan and Ampalavanpokkanai the civilians arriving in the Government controlled area have been quite vocal in expressing their unprecedented hatred and anger towards the LTTE that has been keeping them under subjugation for so long, he added.
EXACTLY three years ago on a sunny day like today (April 25), the Nation was shocked to learn the disturbing news on LTTE’s suicide attempt on the life of the incumbent Commander of the Army, Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka inside the Army Headquarters premises. Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka who had by them commenced the liberation of the East from the grips of LTTE terrorism had a narrow survival after a series of major surgeries, done both in Sri Lanka and overseas.
MULLAITTIVU: IN what appeared to be a surprise, a 21-member strong group of priests, believed to have been forcibly detained by Tiger terrorists inside the “No Fire Zone” in PUTHUMATTALAN managed to find their exit Saturday morning (25) at about 10.30 a.m. and reached the troops at MULLIYAWALAI, MULLAITTIVU. The team including three parish priests (fathers), fourteen nuns (sisters) and four trainee nuns, belonging to Pente Costal Mission has been reportedly forcibly detained by Tiger terrorists despite numerous appeals made to them for their release. 
COMMANDER of the Army Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, along with a few senior officers of the Army Headquarters, flew to Vavuniya this morning (25) to review the status quo in the ongoing operations in the “No Fire Zone” in PUTHUMATHALAN, MULLAITHIVU against terrorists. Army Commander after being received by Commander Security Forces Headquarters Wanni (SFHQ-W) Major General Jagath Jayasuriya, was conducted to the SFHQ auditorium where he met senior ground Commanders and discussed the.....
DEFENCE Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa stressed that the Government cannot let the LTTE to surrender to a third party and emphasised that LTTE should be made to surrender only to the Government of Sri Lanka. The Defence Secretary, speaking to the Sunday Observer said this while commenting on the United States’ request for the LTTE to surrender to a third party. “Sri Lankan people had suffered from terrorism and it is our people who were killed by the LTTE. It is not fair for a foreign country to request that the LTTE be allowed to surrender to an outside party,” Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said speaking to the `Sunday Observer’.
