Bangladesh to seek Indian reassurance to resolve issues: AH Mahmood Ali

DHAKA: Bangladesh Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali today said that his country will seek India's reassurance to intensify steps to resolve the outstanding issues like Teesta water and land boundary agreement, as he left for New Delhi to attend a bilateral meeting.

"It undeniable that existing (Dhaka-Delhi) relations are deep...(but) we want an even deeper relation and for that we want unresolved issues should be settled. That's a must," he told reporters at the airport here ahead of his departure.

He insisted that both sides needed to carry forward the efforts to deepen the ties.

"India will also have to give us this assurance. We'll surely seek it. Let me go there and discuss. I'll tell you more once I get back home," he said, recalling that Bangladesh has repeatedly reassured New Delhi that it would not let its soil being used for any terrorist activity against India.

Ali will attend the third Bangladesh-India Joint Consultative Commission (JCC) meeting to be held in New Delhi on September 20.

It will be the first such meeting after the new government took over in India.

Officials earlier said the progress in bilateral cooperation in all areas including security, trade, connectivity, power, water resources, border management, infrastructure, people to people contacts, culture, environment, and education would be reviewed in the meeting.

They said the minister was likely to seek "specific timeframe" from India to resolve the pending Teesta water sharing treaty and Land Boundary Agreement (LBA).

But the minister, however, evaded a direct answer about the timeframe and said Dhaka was being led by a sense of urgency in resolving the two issues.

Ali's visit to Delhi comes three months after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj visited Dhaka in her first stand alone tour to an overseas country.