FS-level talks with India in New Delhi next month

Bangladesh and India will hold foreign secretary-level talks in the second week of December in New Delhi.

Foreign secretary Masud Bin Momen will lead the Bangladesh delegation in the meeting titled ‘foreign-office-consultation’, in which his counterpart Harsh Vardhan Shringla will lead the Indian delegation.

Momen on Thursday told New Age that he would be in India in the second week of December on a long overdue return visit as his counterpart had already visited Dhaka twice this year.

The two foreign secretaries would work on setting grounds for a virtual summit meeting of prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, likely to be held in the second half of December, diplomats in Dhaka and New Delhi said. 

The FS-level meeting would also workout mechanisms for implementing decisions made at the meeting of the Joint Consultative Commission, led by the foreign ministers of the two countries, in September, they said.

The Bangladesh side is expecting a meeting of water resources secretaries of the two countries to prepare grounds for a minister-level meeting of the Joint Rivers Commission at the earliest for resolution of the protracted disputes on water sharing of the common rivers, including signing an interim agreement on the River Teesta based on documents initialled in 2010, a water resources ministry official said.

They said that the two sides were working on the conclusion of the Framework of Interim Agreement on sharing of six other joint rivers — Manu, Muhuri, Khowai, Gumti, Dharla and Dudhkumar.

The Bangladesh side is expected to raise the issues of various non-tariff barriers, including anti-dumping and anti-circumvention duties imposed by India on Bangladesh products like jute, and lack of adequate trade facilitation that is impeding the flow of Bangladeshi products into India, they said. 

Engaging India on repatriation of forcibly displaced Rohingya people to Myanmar and stopping of killing along the Indo-Bangladesh border by the Indian Border Security Force would also be in the Bangladesh agenda.

The Indian side is likely to push for the implementation of the development projects under four Lines of Credit and extending defence cooperation and joint celebration of the lives of Bangladesh’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Mahatma Gandhi of India, according to sources in New Delhi.  

It will be Momen’s first to India after taking over as foreign secretary less than a year ago. Shringla was in Dhaka in March and September this year on official visits.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net