Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa has offered his services to India’s army, proposing to train their armed forces in ‘counter insurgency’.
Rajapaksa made the proposal to share Sri Lanka’s expertise in the field, (dubbed “the Sri Lanka option”), when the head of the Indian Army came to visit Sri Lanka earlier this month.
Speaking to the head of the third largest active armed forces in the world, Rajapaksa said,
“When I met Gen Bikram Singh, I renewed our offer to train Indian forces in counter-insurgency. We have designed courses in this field and have offered them to other countries facing terrorism.”It is now up to the Indian army chief to decide.”
He went on to say that India would continue to hold military exercises with Sri Lanka, such as the joint war games that took place earlier this month in Himachal Pradesh, Northern India. Further exercises are reportedly scheduled to be held, but away from Tamil Nadu, where uproar erupted earlier this year over India’s training of Sri Lanka’s Air Force.
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