India and Sri Lanka have decided to coordinate

Ramanathapuram:The Navies of India and Sri Lanka have decided to coordinate their communication network to prevent nefarious activities on either side of the territorial waters.The decision was taken at a high-level meeting of Naval officers of India and Sri Lanka, which took place between the coast off Rameswaram and Point Calimere on board the SLN Sayura, an offshore patrol vessel of the Sri Lankan Navy, on Friday.

The INS Savithiri of the Indian Navy and Habba Khatun, a ship of the Coast Guard, kept a watch as the meeting was on. Several fast attack crafts of the Sri Lankan Navy monitored the movement of boats in their territory.While Commodore Phillip Van Haltren, Naval Officer in-charge, Tamil Nadu, led the Indian delegation, Samaratunga from the Northern Naval Command of Sri Lanka led the team from the island nation.Representatives of the Indian Coast Guard also attended the meeting.Incidents of firing against Tamil Nadu fishermen, reports of smuggling from Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka, violations by a section of Tamil Nadu fishermen, who stray into Sri Lankan waters, retrieval of fishermen and fishing boats captured by Sri Lanka and reports of Sri Lankan fishermen entering Indian waters were discussed at the meeting.

Commodore Haltren told The Hindu that the Indian delegation asked the Sri Lankan Navy not to fire upon the fishermen of Tamil Nadu if they entered Sri Lankan waters for fishing. Instead, they could be arrested as per the laws of Sri Lanka.“We informed the Sri Lankan counterparts about the new initiatives taken by the Tamil Nadu Government to regulate fishing boats. We told them that all boats in Tamil Nadu had been given new registration numbers for identification. We asked them to intimate the Indian Navy immediately, if any boat from India indulges in nefarious activities,” he said. When the issue of recent killing of five Kanyakumari fishermen was raised, the Sri Lankan delegation said it had been established that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealem was behind the incident. They [Sri Lankan Navy] claimed that the LTTE had carried out the attack only to discredit the Sri Lanka Navy, Commodore Haltren said.The meeting decided to step up phone-to-phone contact so as to sort out any issue immediately.The mobile phone numbers of naval officers from both the countries were exchanged.