Hasina had always had meetings with Manmohan Singh, former Indian prime minister, when he went to New York to attend the UNGA
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi will have a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September.
“There will be a meeting. The headquarters are working on it,” AK Abdul Momen, Bangladesh permanent representative to the UN, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
Hasina had always had meetings with Manmohan Singh, former Indian prime minister, when he went to New York to attend the UNGA, Momen said.
“This will be their first meeting. We do not expect substantive discussion but from our side, it is expected that we will raise our long-pending issues, including Teesta water sharing and ratification of the land boundary agreement,” said an official of the Foreign Ministry.
Bangladesh and India were supposed to sign the Teesta agreement in 2011 during the visit of Manmohan Singh to Dhaka, but due to a strong opposition from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, New Delhi backtracked on its decision.
Both the countries signed the Land Boundary Agreement in 1974 and Bangladesh ratified it in the same year, but India is yet to ratify it.
Modi after assuming power stressed on having good relations with neighbours and visited Bhutan and Nepal in the last two months.
He also sent his Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj to Dhaka. During her visit, Sushma said New Delhi wanted to have good relations with its neighbours, including Bangladesh.
The Indian prime minister invited all heads of states and governments of all South Asian countries to attend his swearing-in ceremony in May, but Hasina could not attend as she was in Japan at that time.
Joint consultative commission
Before the Hasina-Modi meeting at the UNGA, the foreign ministers of the two countries will have official talks, known as Joint Consultative Commission, in New Delhi to discuss all pending issues.
“The Indian foreign minister visited Bangladesh in June when it was decided that the ministers would have the JCC meeting at the earliest,” said another official of the Foreign Ministry.
This will be the third JCC meeting after it was launched in 2012.
Before the JCC meeting, there will be no foreign secretary level talks as it is the practice.
Before the first two Joint Consultative Commission meetings, the foreign secretaries held talks and hammered out the agenda for the meetings of their superiors.
The Modi-led government has a big vision to revive the Saarc region and they did not feel shy in sharing their ideas about how Bangladesh fits in the vision, the official said.
Sushma at a lecture in Dhaka on June 26 said: “Building a comprehensive and equitable partnership with Bangladesh is essential for the realisation of our vision of a stable, secure and prosperous South Asia.”
Source: Dhaka Tribune
