India, Bangladesh sign five pacts to cement ties

INDIA: Leaders of India and Bangladesh met in New Delhi on Monday with talks focused on strengthening the previously difficult ties between the two south Asian neighbours, an Indian official said.

Cross-border relations have improved in recent years and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s delegation signed five cooperation agreements with India in areas ranging from cultural exchanges, security, preventing crime and power supply.

Hasina, who has received strong support from Delhi since she came to power a year ago, discussed ways to boost trade and Dhaka’s crackdown on Bangladesh-based Indian separatist rebels with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an Indian foreign ministry official said.

New Delhi has often accused Dhaka of providing shelter to militant groups active in India’s northeast, but Hasina has detained several senior rebels and handed them over to India.

Both countries resolved a bitter dispute on sharing the waters of the Ganges river in 1996 and will work to end disagreements over how to use waters of smaller rivers flowing through both countries, the official said.

Other thorny issues bedevilling ties include Dhaka’s apparent reluctance to allow New Delhi transit rights through its territory to India’s landlocked northeast, and India’s refusal to grant Bangladeshi goods duty free access.

“Sheikh Hasina’s visit is an opportunity to lay the foundations of a much more stable relationship,” Arundhati Ghosh, a retired Indian official formerly posted in Dhaka, told AFP earlier Monday.

“It is India’s strategic interest to cooperate” with its small neighbour, she said.

New Delhi, Tuesday, AFP