Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa stressed the importance of eliminating terrorism for regional stability.
Addressing a graduation ceremony of the Defence Services Command and Staff College on Friday, the Prime Minister said, “If Sri Lanka fails to strengthen security and eliminate domestic terrorism, neighboring countries including India, the Maldives, Bangladesh and even Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia will be under threat.”
He said that the country is faced with a ‘new terrorist threat’ that will have to be ‘contained with whatever means necessary’.
He added that Sri Lanka’s immediate neighbors and other nations are aware of the danger and will extend their fullest support to the task.
“We have to take note of the fact that while there were no Indians among the 2008 Mumbai attackers, all the Easter Sunday suicide bombers were Sri Lankans,” he said, referring to multiple attacks in India that killed over 160 persons in 2008.
“This is a threat that will have to be contained not only for Sri Lanka’s sake but for the well-being of all other nations in the region,” the Prime Minister said, adding that in contract to the war against the LTTE, the ‘new threat’ calls for ‘intelligence operations, cooperation with international intelligence agencies and strategic foreign policy initiatives’.