By NNN-BSS,
Dhaka, Bangladesh : Indian external affairs secretary Nirupama Menon Rao left here this morning after a two-day visit to Bangladesh ahead of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s planned New Delhi tour next month.
Senior officials of the foreign ministry and Indian high commission were present at the airport to see her off.
“Rao visited Dhaka at the invitation of Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Mohamed Mijarul Quayes for preparatory talks ahead of the Prime Minister’s visit to India,” officials at the foreign ministry said.
This was Rao’s first visit to Bangladesh since she assumed the office of the top bureaucrat in the external affairs ministry in New Delhi in August this year.
During her visit, the Indian foreign secretary held bilateral talks with her Bangladesh counterpart Quayes, called on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni and main
opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief Begum Khaleda Zia.
The two foreign secretaries in the talks reviewed issues of bilateral ties ahead of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s planned visit to New Delhi next month.
“The issue of taking forward the our cooperation is something that under constant focus . . . that is the purpose of coming to Bangladesh,” Indian external affairs secretary Nirupama Menon Rao told newsmen after a nearly two-hour meeting with her Bangladesh counterpart at the State Guest House Padma.
She added that she particularly came this time in the “context of preparations for a very significant visit of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India in December” while New Delhi attached “highest importance” to its ties with
Dhaka.
Quayes said his talks with Rao looked into the progress on the understanding that was reached between the two countries during Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni’s visit to India in September last.
“I can assure you both the countries are committed to materializing that understanding,” he said in a brief media appearance with Rao after the talks.
Later at a regular fortnightly briefing at the foreign office, Quayes said the joint statement issued during the foreign minister’s New Delhi visit in September was the baseline for the prime minister’s forthcoming India tour.
He listed the Bangladesh priority issues to be tabled at the summit as sharing of water in common rivers and the Teesta in particular, power import, connectivity with Nepal and Bhutan, enclave and other border issues, cooperation of dredging in major
rivers, and upgradation of railway systems.
Asked what the Indian priority could be during the premier’s New Delhi visit, he preferred the question to be asked to the Indian officials but added that dredging of the Ichhamati river, border issues, law and order and security issues and getting Ashuganj as port of call under the existing water transit protocol could be on the top of their agenda.