India, Lanka finalise defence accord

The draft was completed after talks on stepping up training for Sri Lankan troops, the sharing of intelligence, and equipping Sri Lankan security forces with Indian hardware, the defence ministry official said.

"The draft agreement is now ready for approval by both countries," the official said.

It was not immediately clear when the Defence Cooperation Agreement would be formally inked but President Chandrika Kumaratunga is due to visit New Delhi next month for her first meeting with the new Indian leadership.

India banned military sales to the island during the height of fighting between Sri Lankan government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels, but lifted the embargo after a truce went into effect in February 2002.

In May the new Indian government pledged to maintain support for Colombo's efforts to end its long-running ethnic conflict and to continue talks on a defence pact.

The pact was initially suggested in October by then prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, defeated at April parliamentary elections.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels sent one of their top military commanders overseas for urgent medical treatment yesterday, the government announced.

The head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) naval operations, Thillayampalan Sivaneshan, was flown out of the country accompanied by a doctor, the government's Peace Secretariat said.

Official sources said he was flown to Singapore.

The secretariat said in a statement that Sri Lanka's peace broker Norway had told the government the commander, better known as Soosai, needed overseas treatment because of a "rapidly worsening condition caused by an old injury sustained in conflict."