Bangladesh has said it will stand by the side of India if ‘it is attacked by any
enemy’.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan yesterday said Bangladesh must be with India. “Pakistan is 1,200km away from Bangladesh as there’s no border between the two countries. The roar of Pakistan’s won’t not reach us. More importantly, we defeated them in the 1971 Liberation War, and we didn’t join the Saarc Summit following Pakistan’s recent interference in the country’s
internal matter,” he said.
The friendly relationship between Bangladesh and India will continue, he said, adding that the both countries have agreed to bring down killings along the bordering areas of the two countries to zero level while the Indian government will provide support to construct roads by using their lands in remote
border areas.
Meanwhile, India’s official spokesperson Vikas Swarup said that Bangladesh and India have become ‘model neighbours’ and the two prime ministers share ‘a very good chemistry’.
He said they are looking forward to welcoming Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the upcoming Brics Summit in Goa where India has invited all leaders of the seven-member BIMSTEC regional grouping that connects South Asia with South East Asia.
“We have one of the strongest partnerships with Bangladesh. The two prime ministers have met a number of times. They share a very good chemistry,” Swarup told a group of Bangladesh journalists visiting Delhi at the invitation of the ministry of external affairs.
He also hosted an official dinner for them on Monday.
He said the ‘very good partnership’ between the countries has extended into so many sectors that both sides have been able to resolve the long pending issues such as land boundary agreement.
“We share each other’s success. We share each other’s sorrows. And we are partners in each other’s progress. I think this partnership can only go strength to strength,” he said.
He, however, did not speak about the Teesta water sharing issue in his brief remarks for the Bangladesh group.
However, Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, a fellow of the think-tank, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), said that New Delhi is still working on building consensus on the Teesta water sharing issue which was thwarted by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in 2011. But Banerjee during her last year’s visit to Dhaka urged all to keep faith on her this time.
Chakravarty, who was India’s high commissioner in Bangladesh from 2007-09, said, “The problem is West Bengal is unwilling to do it. This is a problem within India. It’s entirely
dependent on West Bengal.”
The Bangladeshi journalists met State Minister for external affairs M J Akbar and senior
officials at the South Block.