Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Bangladesh on Tuesday for a visit aimed at mending often fractious ties but breakthroughs on main disputes, including sharing of water from rivers, look unlikely.
In India and Bangladesh, officials said a deal to share water from two rivers – the Teesta and the Feni – that flow from the Himalayas through India and Bangladesh to the Bay of Bengal may not be signed during the visit because the government of West Bengal state refused to agree.
Even if a deal was initialled by Manmohan Singh and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the endorsement of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was essential for its implementation, the officials said. Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said that India had not ruled out the signing of an agreement.
But a Bangladesh Foreign Ministry official said on Tuesday the river deal looks very unlikely during Singh’s visit. Also there was not expected to be agreement on an Indian request for transit rights through Bangladesh for India’s land-locked northeastern states, because terms and conditions had not been finalised, the official said.
From next year, Bangladesh would allow India to use its Chittagong and Mongla ports to supply its northeastern states, Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith said. Former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia opposes giving India a corridor and the right to use the ports because she feels it would give India an upper hand over Bangladesh.
Analysts say India wants a lasting, stable relationship with Bangladesh, an emerging economy and big market for Indian goods, no matter who rules in Dhaka. Singh and Hasina are expected to sign agreements on an exchange of disputed territory, dating back to the 1947 partition of British India, as well as pacts on trade and cooperation in various areas.
Bilateral trade has grown steadily but remains heavily in India’s favour, with the gap widening, causing concern in Bangladesh where businesses are asking for the removal of both tariff and non-tariff barriers. But Bangladeshi economists and analysts say a pact on the sharing of water from the Teesta and more than 50 other common rivers is most important for downstream, agrarian Bangladesh.
Dr Singh, his wife Gursharan Kaur and a high-level delegation were accorded red-carpet welcome when their special aircraft landed at the Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, where Sheikh Hasina received the Indian delegation. Bangladesh and India had signed a 25-year Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Peace on March 19, 1972. However, the two governments declined to renew the treaty when it expired in 1997.
The framework of agreement will provide a structure, and identify priorities of the relationship. In a statement before his departure for Dhaka, Dr Singh had outlined his agenda in Bangladesh — security, boundary issues, water resources, power connectivity, improvement of border infrastructure, trade facilitation and economic cooperation — and said efforts would be made to sustain and build upon the positive momentum.
Giving security cooperation a leg-up, an extradition pact is likely to be inked by the two sides in the presence of Dr Singh and Hasina after their talks in Dhaka on Wednesday. Top ULFA leader Anup Chetia, now in Bangladesh after having served out his sentence, could be the first to be sent back to India under the new accord.
The two countries are likely to sign a package protocol under the 1974 Mujib-Indira Land Boundary Agreement which will deal with five legacy issues — exchange of enclaves and adversely possessed land, demarcation of 6.5km of un-demarcated border, allowing Bangladeshis to use Tin Bigha Corridor for 24 hours, and finalisation of a strip map.
Significantly, the Indian prime minister accompanied by chief ministers of four Northeastern states — Assam, Tripura, Meghayala and Mizoram — in his trip to Dhaka. A protocol on Protection of Royal Bengal Tiger in the Sundarbans is also likely to be inked. Besides, the two countries might sign MoU on Preservation of Biodiversity in the Sundarbans.
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