Foreign secys of BD, India meet in Delhi tomorrow

The foreign secretaries of Bangladesh and India will sit in a meeting in New Delhi tomorrow (January 27) to fix the agenda for talks between Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Dhaka in March.
"They will complete the groundwork for the meeting and discuss Rohingya repatriation, joint river management and connectivity along with other bi-lateral issues in a two-day
meeting," a senior official of the Foreign Ministry told the Daily Observer on Monday.
Engaging India on repatriation of forcibly displaced Rohingyas to Myanmar and putting a stop to killings along the Indo-Bangladesh border by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) would also be in the Bangladesh agenda.
The FS-level meeting would also workout mechanisms for implementing decisions made at the meeting of Joint Rivers Commission in December 2020. The Bangladesh side is expecting for a resolution of the protracted disputes on water sharing of the common rivers, including signing an interim agreement on the River Teesta based on documents initialled in 2010.
The renewal of the treaty of Ganges River water sharing is also an agenda there, the official said.
"We are expecting that Indian Prime Minister Norendra Modi will attend the Mujib Barso programme in March 26 in person. Prior to the meeting, both sides to complete the groundwork of the upcoming meeting in Dhaka," the official added.
Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen will lead the Bangladesh delegation in the meeting titled 'foreign-office-consultation', in which his counterpart Harsh Vardhan Shringla will lead the Indian delegation.
"It is an overdue return visit of our foreign secretary as his counterpart had already visited Dhaka twice last year," the official said.
He said that the two sides were working on the conclusion of the Framework of Interim Agreement on sharing of six other joint rivers - Manu, Muhuri, Khowai, Gumti, Dharla and Dudhkumar.
The Bangladesh side is expected to raise the issues of various non-tariff barriers, including anti-dumping and anti-circumvention duties imposed by India on Bangladesh products like jute, and lack of adequate trade facilitation that is impeding the flow of Bangladeshi products into India, they said.
The Indian side is likely to push for the implementation of the development projects under four Lines of Credit and extending defence cooperation. It will be Foreign Secretary Momen's first visit to India after taking over the charge.