From rxpgnews.com
India-Bangladesh ties set for 'new beginning'
By IANS,
Apr 2, 2007 - 10:36:13 PM
New Delhi, April 2 - Relations between India and Bangladesh appear to be headed for better times with the new interim regime in Dhaka planning to start a cross-border train in three months and New Delhi stressing on a possible 'new beginning' in bilateral ties.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Chief Advisor Fakhruddin Ahmed, who heads the interim administration in Bangladesh, Monday evening and discussed with him an entire range of bilateral issues - the first contact at the highest level between the two countries since the army-backed regime took charge in Dhaka nearly three months ago.
'India has a vested interest in a stable, democratic and prosperous Bangladesh,' Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Touhid Hossain quoted Manmohan Singh as telling Ahmed.
'This meeting augurs well for the future of India-Bangladesh ties,' Hossain told select journalists.
The emphasis of the meeting was on reactivating bilateral mechanism, he said.
The train link between Joydevpur near Bangladesh capital Dhaka and Sealdah in West Bengal state of India will be launched in three months from now, he said.
A three-year agreement regarding the service, which was first signed on July 12, 2001 and extended again in 2004, expires in July this year. The two countries will have to renew this treaty, he said.
India has been actively engaged in dialogue with the caretaker administration in Bangladesh to explore whether it was possible to 'make a new beginning' in this relationship that has been shadowed by trust deficit all these years.
'We want to see whether we can make a new beginning in our relations. We are discussing an entire range of relationship,' Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said earlier while alluding to the meeting between External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Foreign Advisor Iftekar Ahmed Chowdhury that took place Saturday.
The two countries are keen to remake this relationship, he said.
In a clear indication that India-Bangladesh ties are poised for an improvement during the present dispensation in Dhaka, Menon said that New Delhi had noted approvingly the campaign against corruption and organised crime in Bangladesh by the current regime.
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