Dhaka, New Delhi to sign fresh deals on trade, connectivity

Sep 4, 2011, 17:11 GMT

Dhaka - Bangladesh and India are expected to sign nearly a dozen deals, including a broad-based framework agreement on cooperation, during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Dhaka, a senior minister said Sunday.

'The framework agreement will guide the two neighbours to shape up future cooperation in all possible areas,' Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said at a press conference ahead of the Indian premier's visit planned to begin Tuesday.

She said the deal, to be signed between Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed and her Indian counterpart, is aimed at ensuring the peace, prosperity and stability of the entire region.

This will be the second such broad-based agreement between Dhaka and New Delhi after the 1972 Friendship Agreement signed between the then Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi and Bangladesh's founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman following Bangladesh's independence in 1971.

The 25-year deal expired in 1997.

In addition, the two South Asian neighbours will seek to make progress on making operational two Bangladeshi maritime ports to carry goods to India's landlocked north-eastern states through Bangladesh territory; an interim agreement on sharing of waters of two cross-boundary rivers; and exchanging of territory and demarcation of 6.5 kilometres disputed boundary line.

Also to be finalized are deals on a railway transit route to Nepal, cooperation in renewable energy, fisheries, exchange of television programmes, nature conservation and cooperation on education, the minister said.

The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will arrive in Dhaka on Tuesday to hold official talks with his Bangladeshi counterpart to resolve a number of outstanding matters between the two countries.

Singh, to be accompanied by his wife Gursharan Kaur, cabinet ministers and chief minister of five Indian states surrounding Bangladesh, is scheduled to meet a number of leading Bangladeshi politicians, including former prime minister and present opposition leader Khaleda Zia.

His will be the first visit to Bangladesh by an Indian prime minister since 1999.

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