Bangladesh PM to visit India in Oct with water issues on agenda
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina will visit India in October next to discuss bilateral issues, including the ones related to common rivers, to take the growing relations between Bangladesh and India forward.
Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar will visit Bangladesh this month, most likely on August 20-21, when the date of Sheikh Hasina’s India visit will be finalised.
Foreign minister AK Abdul Momen disclosed this while talking to a small group of journalists at his office on Sunday.
Asked about possible discussion on the long-pending Teesta water-sharing issue, Momen said, ‘I can’t tell you exactly.’
He, however, hinted that there can be discussions on the 54 common rivers as Teesta seems not to be in the hand of Indian central government.
Momen termed India the biggest democratic country and a big neighbour of Bangladesh, and recalled that the Indian side, when he visited there, accepted him with much respect.
India is a leading development partner of Bangladesh and it has extended concessional lines of credit totalling around the US $ 8 billion.
Momen said he would discuss the LOC projects, expenditures and barriers to implementation of those projects, if any, and identify reasons to expedite the implementation process.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina will attend India Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum with the theme ‘Innovating for India: Strengthening South Asia, Impacting the World’ to be held in New Delhi on October 3-4, a diplomatic source said.
Hosted in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry, the meeting will build on its more than three decades of success and will have a special focus on promoting deeper collaboration between South Asia and ASEAN to leverage their distinctive demographic and digital dividends to boost global growth and enhance collective future.
Key leaders from governments, the private sectors, academia and civil society will address strategic issues of regional significance under four thematic pillars - the new geopolitical reality - geopolitical shifts and the complexity of our global system, the new social system - inequality, inclusive growth, health and nutrition, the new ecological system - environment, pollution and climate change and the new technological system - the fourth industrial revolution, science, innovation and entrepreneurship.
When his attention was drawn to media reports that India seeks land from Bangladesh for the expansion of Agartala Airport in Tripura which was renamed as Maharaja Bir Bikram Airport, Momen said, ‘I didn’t get any letter.... I’ve no knowledge about it.’
He also mentioned that home minister Asaduzzaman Khan will visit India and he may discuss it. ‘We didn’t get any letter in this regard.’
Responding to another question on Sheikh Mujib’s killers, the foreign minister expressed his hope to bring back at least one or two killers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman before the celebrations of his birth centenary.
News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net
