Opposition leader and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia on Saturday met Indian President Pranab Mukherjee and later termed her visit to India as “highly successful” and her talks with Indian leaders as “fruitful”.
“My visit to India was highly successful. I discussed with Indian leaders how to strengthen Bangladesh’s relations with India and my talks were fruitful,” Khaleda said while talking to Bangladeshi journalists, who accompanied her, at the Indira Gandhi International Airport shortly before leaving India.
Asked if BNP would change its policy towards India, Khaleda avoided a direct answer and said “we have to do everything through talks”, reports our New Delhi correspondent.
She said her talks with Indian leaders took place in a “cordial” atmosphere.
Referring to her talks with Mukherjee at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in the morning, she said all bilateral issues, including border killings, had come up during the meeting.
BNP Vice Chairman Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury said the meeting between Mukherjee and Khaleda lasted for about 55 minutes.
Khaleda told Mukherjee that poverty is a major problem afflicting India and Bangladesh and if this can be overcome, some of the problems between the two countries can be solved, her apparent reference to the problem of illegal cross-border migration from Bangladesh.
During her weeklong stay in India, Khaleda had held talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who hosted a lunch for her, Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid, main opposition BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj and Nitin Gadkari besides Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai and National Security Adviser Shivshanker Menon.
Khaleda also did sight-seeing in Jaipur, the capital city of the desert state of Rajasthan, and prayed at the Ajmer Sharif.
Source: The Daily Star
