Foreign minister S Jaishankar held discussions with Bangladesh foreign adviser Touhid Hossain at the Indian Ocean Conference in Oman’s Muscat on Sunday amid growing calls in Dhaka for the extradition of Bangladesh’s deposed ex-PM Sheikh Hasina.
Hasina fled to India after stepping down amid nationwide protests.
However, Jaishankar clarified that the discussions mainly focused on the bilateral relationship and cooperation under Bimstec.
A readout from Bangladesh indicated that Hossain also requested India to consider convening a meeting of the Saarc standing committee, which has not met since the 2016 Uri attack. India chose to block the process at the time due to Pakistan’s support for cross-border terrorism activities.
The conference is a prelude to a potential meeting between Prime Minister Modi and Bangladesh’s chief adviser Md Yunus during the Bimstec summit in Thailand on April 3-4.
Bimstec is aimed at creating an environment for economic development by identifying and implementing specific projects agreed upon by its member states: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.
India is actively promoting Bimstec, but expectedly the initiative excludes Pakistan. Since Saarc is essentially non-existent, India has been focusing on the inter-regional Bimstec as a strong platform for regional cooperation and connectivity.
If this meeting occurs, it will mark the first bilateral interaction between Modi and Yunus since the latter took office. Both leaders are expected to be present at the Bimstec summit.
It was hoped that border-related concerns would be discussed and handled during the border forces’ talks this week. Both sides, media outlets reported, acknowledged the difficulties the two neighbours have been encountering in their bilateral relations and spoke of the need to resolve them. In Muscat, Jaishankar also had meetings with his counterparts from other Bimstec member states, including Nepal and Bhutan.
The mention of Bimstec in Jaishankar’s post is important also because Bangladesh will officially take over as the chair of the group from Thailand at the summit. “As the chair, Bangladesh will have the opportunity to lead Bimstec, and take initiatives for cooperation in different sectors by working together in tandem with all the member states and this will be an opportunity for Bangladesh to re-demonstrate its commitment to the world,” Bimstec secretary-general I M Pandey was quoted as saying last week.
For Bangladesh, Bimstec chairmanship is an opportunity to assert its leadership and strengthen regional ties, signalling a renewed focus on shared goals and mutual growth with the association’s members.
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