Bangladesh Asks to Revive Regional Cooperation in Meeting with India
Bangladesh Interim Government’s Foreign Affairs Adviser, Touhid Hossain, took a meeting with India’s Minister of External Affairs, S. Jaishankar, at Muscat in Oman during the 8th Indian Ocean Conference (IOC) to enlist the support of India for the renewed activation of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The two leaders met to discuss significant regional matters, with Hossain urging the revival of the 1996 Ganges Water Treaty and seeking India’s assistance in convening a SAARC Standing Committee meeting. The two leaders met on Sunday, and Bangladesh’s foreign ministry released a statement after the meeting.
The Bangladesh interim government, headed by Muhammad Yunus, has been making efforts to revive SAARC, which has been dormant for years because of India-Pakistan tension. Hossain stressed this point in his meeting with Jaishankar and also brought up the need to revive the Ganges Water Treaty.
S. Jaishankar confirmed the meeting with Hossain but emphasized the bilateral relationship of India with Bangladesh and the cooperation through BIMSTEC and added that Bangladesh would take over the chairmanship of BIMSTEC from Thailand during the next summit in April 2025.
The two diplomats have been enjoying their second encounter after the September 2024 one, both of which were kindly bestowed during the UN General Assembly, shortly after Yunus took over. Most of the news headlines over the past few years have been on the rivalry between India and Bangladesh, particularly on the persecution of the minorities, including the Hindus, in Bangladesh after the political unrest that ousted Sheikh Hasina. Apart from that, there are larger concerns over the long shared border constructed between the two nations.
Both sides during their meetings identified those issues on which bilateral relations are being impacted and which need to be sorted out by cooperating. The top commanders of the two border military units are sitting at talks in New Delhi this week.
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