AMN
DHAKA – Indian foreign secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar Saturday said that talks between Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina with her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi elevated the bilateral ties entirely to a new platform.
“This (summit) has placed our relations in a completely new platform,” the top bureaucrat of the India’s foreign office told a press briefing shortly after the two leaders held their official talks at the Bangladesh Premier’s office.
Jaishankar added: “(This meeting suggests) there is no limit to India-Bangladesh relations.”
Earlier the two premiers held the talks and a tete-a-tete after flagging off bus services on new routes between the two countries at a ceremony also joined by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Their official talks were preceded by a meeting of the two premiers with Banerjee at the PMO.
Outlining the outcome of the summit the top Indian diplomat said it created a new horizon of economic cooperation at sub-regional level under which Bangladesh could have direct routes to Nepal and Bhutan while India would get access to its isolated northeastern region.
Asked what the two premiers discussed about the long outstanding issues of Teesta, he evaded a direct answer referring to Modi’s statement after the talks with Sheikh Hasina when the Indian premier said, “I am confident that with the support of state governments in India, we can reach a fair solution on Teesta and Feni River.”
Jaishankar, however, hinted that the issue also came up in the discussion before their formal talks as Modi and Sheikh Hasina had spent times with Banerjee, who has a major stake in the issue being the chief minister of West Bengal and previously appeared on the way of signing the deal at the last minute during former Indian premier Manmohan Singh’s 2011 Dhaka tour.
He said during the talks, Modi offered a new line of credit of US$2 billion, which unlike the previous Indian credit line of $1 billion would cover greater areas of development like education, electricity, road infrastructure apart from railway. “We have been encouraged with the outcome of the previous LoC (line of credit)” in offering the second credit line, Jaishankar said.
The top diplomat of the next-door neighbour said security was another major area where the two countries demonstrated excellent cooperation in the past several years.
“The support of the Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (in combating cross-border terrorism) has created an enormous trust and brought the relations to its current elevated level,” he said.
The summit yielded six agreements and protocols alongside 13 MoUs, semi-government MoUs while the two sides exchanged LBA ratification instruments to enable them to launch the implementation process of the treaty, which Jaishankar, however, said would take some more time to be completed.