The Hindu : New Delhi-Dhaka agree to remove major irritants

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 30, 2003

International

International

New Delhi-Dhaka agree to remove major irritants

By Haroon Habib

DHAKA April 29. India and Bangladesh have agreed to remove major long-standing irritants in their bilateral relations, including problems with border demarcation, exchange of enclaves and illegal cross-border movement of people. The broad-based agreement, seen as a major development, was reached at a Foreign Secretary-level meeting here today.

The meeting also addressed issues such as duty-free access of more Bangladeshi items, free trade and establishment of transportation links. The Bangladesh Foreign Secretary, Shamser Mobin Chowdhury, led the home side while the External Affairs Secretary, Kanwal Sibal, who reached here last night, led the Indian team at the talks that lasted for over two hours. Officials here said the two sides also discussed signing of two agreements soon — one on bilateral investment protection and another related to science, officials confirmed.

India also offered two new ideas one about cyclone-tidal surge-reduction management and another cooperation in IT sector. The meeting agreed to hold an overdue ministerial-level meeting of the Joint Economic Commission in the middle of this year and a Foreign Secretary-level meet in New Delhi early next year. It was decided that the Bangladesh Finance Minister, M. Saifur Rahman, would visit New Delhi in two weeks' time to discuss the issues related to bilateral trade and economic cooperation.

Mr. Chowdhury told reporters that the talks were held in a free and frank atmosphere and all the bilateral issues came up. He said such meetings would continue at different levels to resolve the outstanding problems and strengthen the friendly relations between the two countries.

In another high-level conference, the BSF and the BDR Directors General continued their discussions on tricky border issues in the 4-day talks that began at the BDR headquarters here on Monday.

The DG of the BDR, Major General Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, is leading the home team while BSF DG, Ajoy Raj Sharma, is heading the Indian side. It is learnt that the BDR alleged that the BSF had tried to push into Bangladesh more than 5,000 Bengali-speaking Indian nationals between January and March this year.

The Indian side sought strengthening of BDR-BSF coordination to prevent border crimes, ensuring border security and environment conservation. It also wanted to know the latest position on the implementation of 1974 Mujib-Indira Accord. Members of both the delegations would visit frontier areas in south-western districts of Jessore and Khulna, BDR sources said and added that elaborate discussions on border problems would come up in the next two sessions scheduled later.

Meanwhile, Mr. Sharma met the Bangladesh Home Minister, Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, and discussed border issues. Both the sides reached a consensus to take effective steps to maintain peace along the border and check smuggling. Both the Home Minister and the BSF DG felt the urgency to introduce joint patrol teams along the border.

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