Indian minister's visit to Bangladesh termed successful

Feb 20, 2007, 16:27 GMT

Dhaka - Bangladesh's caretaker government said Tuesday the whirlwind visit by Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to Dhaka was highly successful.

An official statement Tuesday said the exchange of views between Mukherjee and Foreign Affairs Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury concerned a series of outstanding issues including trade imbalance, water-sharing and security.

Mukherjee dashed to the Bangladesh capital Dhaka overnight on a day's visit to India's closest neighbour mainly to deliver invitation letters to top government leaders for attending the fourteenth summit of the regional forum SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation).

India is staging the summit in New Delhi April 3-4 which will be attended by founding members Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka besides the host country.

Diplomatic sources said Afghanistan was likely to join the summit as a newly admitted member of the forum.

Chowdhury, who heads the Foreign Ministry in the interim government, described the talks with his Indian counterpart as 'successful.'

Mukherjee announced in Dhaka the withdrawal of tariff barriers to reduce the trade gap between the two neighbours.

India also announced the import of 2 million pieces of ready-made apparel from Bangladesh free of duty in an effort to correct the imbalance.

This is the first meeting at a high level between India and Bangladesh since a caretaker government took charge in Dhaka in January.

The statement said India would not divert water from the upper reaches of the Tipaimukh river to put into operation a dam as this could upset the share of water flowing into lower Bangladesh.

On security Bangladesh and India agreed not to allow any terrorist or insurgent groups to use their territory as sanctuaries.