'LTTE still on terrorist list'

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, SEPT. 24. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam will continue to be in the list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations, in which it was included in 1996, the U.S. State Department clarified today.

The clarification comes in the wake of a report, datelined Colombo, quoting a U.S. official as saying that Washington had excluded the LTTE from its global war against terrorism.

The focus of Mr. Bush's executive Order, that has identified institutions and entities providing support to terrorist organisations, is to identify support facilities for terrorist outfits - and not an effort to rewrite or modify the list of terrorist organisations that have already been identified, it is maintained.

``The State Department's list will stand and the White House Executive Order will not replace this old list,'' an official told The Hindu.

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Section  : International
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