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India will assist Sri Lanka in the development of the crucial Palaly air base and the Kanakesanthurai port in Jaffna peninsula, as the country works to rebuild the war-torn North.

'Indian government's help has been sought for development of the Palaly air base and the KKS port projects. India has said it will consider providing assistance for these two projects,' Sri Lankan government sources said.

The crucial Palaly air base is the nerve centre of Sri Lanka's military presence in the Jaffna peninsula.

The air base served as the main lifeline to Jaffna as there was no land supply route to the peninsula until 2009.

Till then much of the essential food items, medicines as well as ammunition was brought regularly via air to the Palaly base.

The Sri Lankan air force through its organisation called 'Helitours' offers scheduled commercial flights to Palaly in Jaffna and China Bay in Eastern Trincomalee.

The state-owned Daily News today said the Indian Government has agreed to assist Sri Lanka in development of the Palaly airport and Kankesanthurai Port.

'Indian High Commissioner Ashok K Kantha conveyed this decision to Prime Minister D M Jayaratne when he called on the Prime Minister to congratulate him on his assumption of office and have discussions yesterday,' the newspaper said.

Quoting a statement by Sri Lankan Prime Minister's office, the paper said the Indian government always desired to widen economic, social and cultural ties with Sri Lanka at all times.

India was also willing to assist Sri Lanka in its resettlement programme in the North, it said.

Prime Minister D M Jayaratne also recalled with gratitude the timely assistance given to Sri Lanka by India.

'Indian assistance was much needed at this juncture when Sri Lanka is striving to achieve economic development after eradicating terrorism,' the paper quoted the statement.


According to a statement by the Indian High Commission here, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister and Kantha discussed the friendly ties between the two countries.

During the meeting, they discussed ways and means of further strengthening relations between the two countries and discussed other matters of bilateral interest, it said.

It may be recalled that recently the Sri Lankan authorities put in place a refurbished 12000 ton capacity fuel storage tank at Kankesanthurai port.

This was to enable cutting the costs previously incurred by the government as a result of long delays in the turnover of ships in Kankesanthurai due to the lack of a fuel storage tank facility.

Pakistan said, economy and defense activities will be granted continuously to Sri Lanka. Pakistan Prime Minister Yusoof Rasa Kilaani met Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse yesterday (29/04/2010), and made this statement.

He said, even though there is down fall in our country s economy, the assistance to Sri Lanka will continue in the proper manner. Meanwhile Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Rasa Kilini said, Pakistan government is much happy to maintain continuously the brotherhood between both countries.

The latest indicator of this favourable trend is the successful conclusion of a basic aerodrome fire fighting course by a group of fire fighters from the Maldives Airports Company at the Civil Aviation Training Centre, Sri Lanka.

These fire fighters underwent the regular basic fire fighting course that is followed by recruits to the airport fire service of the Bandaranaike International Airport with minor adaptations to suit the specific operational requirements of Male International Airport.

The course was of three months duration and included theoretical subjects such as Firemanship, Fire Ground Skills, Aircraft Fire Fighting, Fire Vehicles, Radio Communication, Fire fighting equipment and hydrants.

The trainees also underwent practical training and were also exposed to live fire exercises conducted under the supervision of experienced instructors. The course also included training on first aid delivered by the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society and an outward bound training stint.

The Civil Aviation Training Centre (CATC), situated at Ratmalana, is the training division of Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Ltd., the fully state owned company vested with the responsibility of providing airport services within the geographical extent of Sri Lanka and aviation services within the Colombo Flight Information Region.

It provides training to officers deployed in specialized services such as Air Traffic Control, Avionics Engineering, Aeronautical Communication Services, Airport Fire and Rescue Services and Airport Security Services.

Its faculty comprises qualified, trained and experienced personnel drawn from operations. The CATC is presently the only aviation training institution in Sri Lanka enjoying full membership in the TRAINAIR program of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Up to now this institution has been primarily training only those who are employed by them. Recently, the management of Airport and Aviation Services has made a decision to open its training programs for commercial participation.

A delegation of senior military officers of Pakistan Army, Navy, and Air Force from National Defence University (NDU) of Pakistan visited Sri Lanka on a study tour from April through May 01.

The Pakistani military team headed by Air Commodore Nadeem Anjum of Pakistan Air Force was here to learn about the anti-insurgency operations conducted by the Sri Lankan Army against the LTTE.

The visiting delegation met the Army Commander Lieutenant General Jagath Jayasuriya Tuesday (27) morning at Army Headquarters and had discussions on bilateral interests and explored possibilities of further promoting healthy relations between Sri Lanka Army and Pakistan Defence Services.

The delegates were keen to learn more about recently concluded Wanni Humanitarian Operations and how it was brought to a successful completion, the Army said.

The Pakistani delegation held talks with Sri Lanka's Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa yesterday and discussed the security challenges in both countries.

Pakistan, a strong ally of the United States is waging war-on-terror against the anti-Western forces fueled by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Suicide attacks by Islamic extremists are in the forefront as 1,018 people have been killed in 2009 in about 80 suicide attacks.

Sri Lankan forces last May successfully ended the 30-year long Tamil Tiger terrorism in the island vanquishing all the senior terrorist leaders in a major offensive that lasted over two years.

The Pakistani military delegation's six-day visit to Sri Lanka concluded today.

In an unforgivable act of cruelty, the national carrier SriLankan advertised in the last week s Sunday Observer for pilots in a quarter page prominent colour ad after it repeatedly rejected for more than a year the applications of half a dozen of its ex-pilots to rejoin it.

Pilots said it was a way of the SriLankan management rubbing salt into their raw wounds of being rejected. After kicking their heels in Colombo in vain for about one year with hopes of re-joining SriLankan, which many of them had served loyally for more than a dozen years the six pilots recently signed up with the government owned budget carrier Mihin Lanka.

The said four other pilots serving India s Kingfisher and Jet airlines, whose contracts too are coming to an end soon too have already booked their places with Mihin.

Pilots being a very small community, everyone knows that there are no more Lankan pilots waiting to join an airline here. It was suffice to advertise abroad for pilots, the only reason they placed the ad in a local paper was to drive home the message to us, a senior pilot said.

Even SriLankan s own Pilots Guild sources said the reason to shut out returning ex-national carrier pilots was more a crime than just an injustice to those pilots as the SriLankan was deprived of the services of fully qualified and much experienced pilots who have all flown wide bodied long haul aircraft.

Ironically, the returning pilots will now be flying twin-engine small airbus A-320 for Mihin, whereas earlier they were flying much bigger A-340s and A-330s.

What we normally get when recruiting foreigners are pilots who could hardly speak proper English and some with questionable credentials, a senior Pilots Guild office bearer charged.

It was not very long ago that the national carrier had recruited a German pilot as a full captain of a wide bodied aircraft after he had submitted some questionable qualifications and experience. When the man was discovered by his suspicious co-pilots he left the airline. In another incident a Kazakh pilot serving SriLankan was found dead in a Negombo hotel due to an overdose of alcohol last year. Later, an Indian pilot was found to have committed suicide in another hotel in Negombo.

The Navy says underwater maintenance of its Fast Attack Craft (FACs) can be undertaken at Kankesanthurai, headquarters to the Northern Naval Command. The recently constructed slipway at Uttara base, Kankesanthurai is capable of accommodating vessels up to 60 tonnes for routine maintenance work, sources said.

Already over a dozen vessels had been accommodated at KKS over the past one year.

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa commissioned the slipway. He was accompanied by Navy Commander Vice Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe.

Navy headquarters said that their engineers and divers had completed the job at a cost of Rs. 39 million, though it would have cost approximately Rs. 120 million if private constructors handled it.

The Navy launched the work on the slipway during the then Navy Chief Admiral Wasantha Karannogoda s tenure in office. It was among many projects undertaken at the height of the war.

Sources said that vessels could be accommodated at Trincomalee and Galle for underwater repairs. With the conclusion of war last May, there could be a significant drop in maintenance work.

The Navy had to deploy most of its assets to meet the challenging task of moving supplies as well as men and material between Kankesanthurai and Trincomalee during the war. Although additional deployment of SLN assets had been done away with, normal day and night deployment of assets continues almost one year after the conclusion of war.