B'desh rules out inking transit agreement with India

From Anisur Rahman
Dhaka, Aug 28 (PTI) Bangladesh has ruled out inking any
transit agreement with India during the upcoming visit of
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here, even as it said a major
treaty on rail and waterways will be signed to increase
connectivity.
"No transit agreement will be signed during the visit.
We (however) don't need any new agreement on transit either as
it is not a new subject," Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's
foreign affairs adviser Gowher Rizvi has said.
Speaking to a group of newsmen overnight on the sidelines
of an Iftar party, he said that no transit agreement was
needed to be signed since Bangladesh and India already had
bilateral trade agreement of 1974 that envisaged transit
facilities through rail, road and water ways.
Asked about the tentative time to allow India to use the
transit facility he said at this moment our roads are not at
all ready. First, transit through waterways will be
operationalise, then railway and later on road.
But, Rizvi said, the two countries would need to sign
protocols to make operational the transit facilities under the
1974 trade agreement while the two countries would also
require signing of protocols to make operational Bangladesh's
offer to India to use the Chittagong and Mongla seaports.
Asked what was likely to be the outcome of Singh's
September 6-7 visit, he said the two neighbours were expected
to sign a framework agreement encompassing cooperation in
different fields including water, trade, culture and education
and a major treaty on railway connectivity in north-eastern
Akhaura-Agratala and northwestern Rohanpur- Singabad routes.

The senior technocrat adviser who taught governance and
international relations in Oxford and Harvard for some 30
years, said there had been road and rail connectivity between
the then East Pakistan and India since 1947 which was snapped
during the 1965 Indo-Pak War.
"What Bangladesh now needs is to construct infrastructure,
roads, rail tracks, bridges and expansion of ports facilities
and fixed the transit fees. We are now working on modalities
of the transit," he said.
Regarding the transit fees he said a committee of experts
has submitted its report to the government but declined to
elaborate it immediately saying after detailed analysis the
government would fix an amount.
Rizvi said the two nations were also expected to sign
deals and memorandums of understanding (MoU) on demarcation of
the remaining 6.5 kilometre of the un-demarcated borders,
exchange of enclaves and adversively possessed land, free
movement of Bangladeshis through Tin Bigha Corridor, interim
agreement on sharing of the Teesta water and purchase of
electricity.
"Whatever agreements are signed will be made public and
placed in Parliament. Nothing will be kept secret," he said,
in an apparent reference to main opposition Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP) concerns of "compromised national
interests" through proposed deals with India.
Rizvi evaded a question on inclusion of Nepal and Bhutan
under the identical transit facilities while Finance Minister
AMA Muhith earlier this week said communications
infrastructures in Bangladesh and neighbouring countries were
not readied yet for transit though Dhaka was set to offer the
facility to India, Nepal and Bhutan.