Colombo (PTI): Sri Lanka has told an international gathering that the Mumbai attackers followed the pattern used by the LTTE of using sea routes to launch terror attacks.
Addressing the Bali Democracy Forum in Nusa Dua, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama, also underscored the need for the world community to beef up maritime security, given that these attacks were committed by terrorists getting in from the Arabian Sea aboard a hijacked vessel.
"The Foreign Minister drew the attention of the assembled august gathering at Bali to the similarity of the methods employed by the LTTE and the terrorists who had staged the multiple attacks on Mumbai last month," a foreign ministry statement said here.
Bogollagama had, in an address to Shangri-La Forum in June 2007, pointed out that the Al Qaeda suicide attack on 'USS Cole' in October 2000, was a "copycat" strike of the LTTE's attack on the Lankan vessel 'Abheetha' in 1991, it said.
The Bali Democracy Forum, an initiative of the Indonesian government, which brought together high level delegations from 33 countries in Asia to the Indonesian resort island of Bali for the 2 day meeting was inaugurated by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
The meeting which was co-chaired by the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd was also attended by the Sultan of Brunei and the Prime Minister of Timor L'Este.
Bogollagama also spoke of Sri Lanka's deeply rooted democratic tradition, which he traced to the granting of universal adult franchise in 1931.
Courtesy: The Hindu