“We strongly condemn this attack. It is a shocking incident and we are disappointed with the Norwegian government for not taking proper measures to protect a diplomatic mission right in its national capital. Luckily, no official in the mission was injured but the damage to the property is extensive,” Sri Lanka Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona said.

He said the government was convinced that the LTTE was behind the attack. He said the mission was under threat from sympathizers of the Tigers for several weeks.

As a host country, Norway has a legal obligation to protect the diplomatic missions. The negligence on the part of the Norwegian authorities in ensuring proper security to our mission can be gauged from the simple fact that the hooligans managed to reach it without any hindrance though it is located on the fifth floor,” Dr. Kohona said.

He expressed the hope that the Norwegian authorities, as obliged legally and under international conventions of diplomacy, would act to prevent any further acts of this nature, provide full protection to the Embassy, and required take stringent action against the criminals behind the attack to justice.

Oslo has witnessed several demonstrations in recent weeks by Tamils settled there seeking Norwegian intervention to halt the military operations being undertaken by Sri Lankan forces against the LTTE in the north. Last Friday, a large number of Tamils staged a demonstration in front of the Norwegian Parliament calling on Oslo to intervene to halt the conflict between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels. Under these circumstances it was incumbent for the Norwegian authorities to have been prepared for an attack on the Sri Lanka Embassy and other locations vulnerable to such attacks by pro-LTTE Tamils in Norway and from European countries, a spokesman for the Presidential Secretariat said.

Pro-LTTE groups are at present carrying out a series of demonstrations, often turning violent in several Western capitals, and this could be a precursor to what can happen elsewhere too, from these supporters of terror and violence that are allowed to carry out violence in support of an organization banned as a terrorist organization in by the European Union, and most other countries where such demonstrations are permitted, and are being planned, the spokesman said.