In an apparent reference to the country's experience with Indian Peace Keeping Force in the late 1980s, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G L Peiris said: "The most important lesson we have learnt is that if a country wants to succeed in their war on terror, the effort has to be made by the country itself, not by a foreign army of another country."
"Because intuitively people will support their own inland terrorists and gang up against the foreign army as they will consider them as the invading force. It has happened in many countries already. Patriotism is part of people's instincts," he said.
Peiris, who is here on an official visit, was speaking at the China Institute of International Studies on Sri Lanka's experience and fight against terrorism.
India sent its peace keeping forces to Sri Lanka to disarm the LTTE after the two countries signed the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord in 1987 to end the ethnic crisis in the country.
Sri Lanka's 30-year-old war against the LTTE came to an end with the death of the outfit's chief Velupillai Prabhakaran in 2009.
Peiris, a constitutional law specialist who in the past was involved in working out proposals to devolve power to Tamil areas, said his country is now safe after the defeat of the LTTE and welcomed more Chinese enterprises to invest in Sri Lanka.