Hasina-Modi talks in New Delhi: Dhaka to raise Teesta, NRC and border killings

Bangladesh will raise the contentious issues of Teesta river water-sharing, Assam’s citizenship exercise and border killings along with other issues during a high-level meeting between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in New Delhi on October 5.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will leave Dhaka for the Indian capital at 8am on Thursday aboard a special flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines in her first visit to the neighbouring country after winning the 2018 elections.

Briefing the media on Wednesday, Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said a whole raft of issues will be discussed at the bilateral meeting. A number of deals will also be signed during the visit, said the minister, without getting into specifics as various aspects are yet to be finalised.

“It’ll be at least 10 to 12 (deals),” he said.

A senior government official said more than 15 deals on connectivity, culture, technical cooperation, trade and investment are in the offing. “Fourteen have so far been confirmed,” the official told bdnews24.com on Wednesday.

Bangladesh and India are currently enjoying the “best of relations”.

Over 100 agreements have been signed in the last 10 years, 68 of which were concluded in the last three years alone. India also rolled out three lines of credit to Bangladesh worth $7.5 billion including $200 million grants for different development projects.

The decades-old land boundary and maritime issues have been solved, but the equitable share of the Teesta river water remains unresolved.

The Assam’s citizenship exercise or NRC has also raised concern in Bangladesh as many fear that those rendered non-citizens of India may be pushed into Bangladesh.

But India maintains that it is their internal issue which in no way will affect Bangladesh, a promise that Momen earlier said Dhaka trusts.

Replying to a question, the foreign minister, however, said they would raise the NRC issue and the pending Teesta water sharing deal during the talks.

“We’ll discuss the signing of a framework agreement for common river water-sharing, including Teesta,” he said.

The other issues in the agenda include taking “effective steps” to bring down border killings to zero by stopping smuggling with the cooperation of border guards on both sides, and steps to ensure the free movement of Bangladeshis with a visa inside India to increase people-to-people contact.

The foreign minister said cooperation for counterterrorism and regional peace and stability, agreements for increasing overall trade and investments, withdrawing anti-dumping duty and anti-circumvention duty on Bangladesh’s export items will also be discussed.

He said they are also expecting to sign a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) on the agreement on the use of Mongla and Chattogram ports by India.

BBIN Motor Vehicle Agreement for regional and sub-regional connectivity between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal, and energy sector cooperation will also be discussed.

Officials will also discuss celebrating the birth centenary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the 50 years of diplomatic ties between Bangladesh and India next year.

Bangladesh will also seek India’s support for the repatriation of Rohingyas to Myanmar, the foreign minister said.

He said after the meeting, both leaders will witness the signing of a number of agreements on youth and sports, culture, shipping, economy, ocean research, standard testing of products, trade, education, ICT and economic zones.

During the visit, the prime minister will also call on the Indian President Ram Nath Kovind and Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi.

The Indian external affairs ministry earlier said she will be visiting India at the Invitation of Modi and will take part as the 'chief guest' in the India Economic Summit organised by the World Economic Forum on Oct 3-4.