New Delhi, June 30 (IANS) Ahead of External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna’s visit to Dhaka to prepare for Manmohan Singh’s visit to that country, the prime minister has thanked Bangladesh for helping combat anti-India insurgents but warned against the linkage between an extremist outfit and Pakistan’s ISI.
Krishna is expected to go to Dhaka next week, likely July 6, to prepare the ground for Manmohan Singh’s visit to Bangladesh later this year.
‘With Bangladesh, we have good relations. Bangladesh government has gone out of its way to help us in apprehending the anti-Indian insurgent groups which were operating from Bangladesh for a long time,’ Manmohan Singh told a group of editors at his residence Wednesday.
Hinting at unilateral concessions he is likely to announce when he visits the neighbouring country, Manmohan Singh said: ‘We are also looking at ways and means of some further unilateral concessions. We are also looking at ways and means of finding a practical and pragmatic solution to the sharing of Teesta waters.’
‘I plan to go there myself. The external affairs minister is planning to go later this week,’ he said.
Underlining that bilateral relations with Dhaka were good, Manmohan Singh, however, warned against the designs of rightwing groups like Jamiat-ul-Islami and stressed that it was in the clutches of Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence.
‘But we must reckon that at least 25 percent of the population of Bangladesh swear by the Jamiat-ul-Islami and they are very anti-Indian, and they are in the clutches, many times, of the ISI,’ he said.
‘So, a political landscape in Bangladesh can change at any time. We do not know what these terrorist elements, who have a hold on the Jamiat-e-Islami elements in Bangladesh, can be up to,’ he added.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s visit to India in January 2010 heralded a warming of ties between the two neighbours that stagnated during her predecessor’s tenure.
The visit saw India announcing a $1 billion line of credit for a slew of development projects in Bangladesh and the signing of crucial agreements on enhanced counter-terror and security cooperation.
