Bangladesh foreign minister A K Abdul Momen has asked his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar to expedite resolution of the Teesta river water sharing issue and sought active support to resolve the Rohingya crisis during their maiden talks in Tajikistan, said a foreign office statement in Dhaka.
‘He (Momen) drew the Indian counterpart’s attention towards the much expected pending Teesta water sharing treaty and . . . the foreign minister sought India’s active support and cooperation in resolving the Rohingya problem,’ the statement read.
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It said Momen simultaneously urged the Indian counterpart to take effective steps to stop killings on the Bangladesh-India borders by the Indian border guards.
The two foreign ministers held their first meeting on Friday night at a hotel in Tajik’s capital Dushanbe, where Momen was accompanying president Abdul Hamid to the 5th Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia.
The statement said that the Indian foreign minister assured Momen about necessary Indian cooperation regarding the issues as the Modi government was very sensitive to developing friendly relations with neighbouring countries.
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Jaishankar, who previously served as India’s top diplomat, termed Bangladesh as gateway of New Delhi’s ‘look east economic diplomacy’ in view of its geostrategic location and said the feature could benefit both the countries as well as BIMSTEC, the regional economic forum.
‘India put highest importance on regional connectivity,’ he added.
Momen sought Jaishankar’s cooperation in attracting Indian investment at 100 special economic zones in Bangladesh.
Mentioning that he visited India as the first country after appointed as foreign minister, Momen also invited his Indian counterpart to visit Bangladesh soon.
Jaishankar hoped that he would visit Bangladesh soon at his convenient time.
Both Momen and Jaishankar are former senior diplomats.
The two foreign ministers expressed their satisfactions over the existing deep cordial bilateral relations between Bangladesh and India and hoped that it would further be expanded in the days to come.
Momen said it was an example for the world that how Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina and Narendra Modi lifted Bangladesh-India ties to an unprecedented height by resolving prolonged sensitive disputes through their political insights and farsighted matured leadership.