New Delhi: India’s acceptance of the agrément for appointment of Asad Alam Siam as the next High Commissioner of Bangladesh to India has cleared the decks for the incumbent Bangladeshi foreign secretary to take up his role in New Delhi by the first week of November.
Bangladesh had requested an agrément for Siam in July, and the process took over two months, as reported previously by ThePrint. The new High Commissioner is expected to arrive in New Delhi early next month, and his accreditation process will be scheduled after that.
Riaz Hamidullah, the previous High Commissioner of Bangladesh to India, departed the country over the weekend to take up his next role as Permanent Representative at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.
The diplomatic changes come as New Delhi and Dhaka continue efforts through backchannels to set up conditions required for the visit of Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Tarique Rahman to Delhi. While a person familiar with the matter indicated that the last week of November is a possible date, they maintained that discussions continue on the dates, shape and form of the visit.
India’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh Dinesh Trivedi made a quick visit to New Delhi from 4 October to 8 October, with sources indicating that he had a number of consultative meetings in the national capital on the state of ties. Trivedi briefed Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the state of the relationship, as well as other senior officials.
Ties between the two countries have hit a rough patch in recent months, especially over the continued activities of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in New Delhi. Last week, Humaiun Kobir, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh, said, referring to Hasina, that the “norm” should be the restraining for a “terrorist” from carrying out activities against Dhaka from India, as reported by ThePrint.
Kobir had said that the Government of Bangladesh would never let any “terrorist” wanted by India to carry out activities against the Government of India from Bangladeshi soil, and Dhaka expects some “reciprocity” from India.
Hasina held a press conference on 5 August, two years after her ouster at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of South Asia in New Delhi. The press conference led to anger in Dhaka, with the Bangladesh Foreign Minister explicitly stating that any visit by Rahman to India would happen only after a “conducive environment” was established.
Nevertheless, Kobir in his comments last week urged the Indian government to listen to Trivedi’s reports on the state of the ties, and remained positive that a bilateral visit could occur soon. As a part of continued engagement and dialogue, Manzur Morshed Chowdhury, the Senior Secretary in Bangladesh’s Home Ministry is set to represent Dhaka at the Home Minister’s Meeting of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) grouping in New Delhi Tuesday.
Chowdhury arrived in New Delhi Monday. Bangladesh is the chair of BIMSTEC. However, the sense within Dhaka remains that any positive movement in ties must be through a bilateral format. India had earlier invited Rahman to visit New Delhi for the BRICS leaders’ summit last month as the chair of BIMSTEC, and had also extended an invitation for a bilateral visit.
The relationship between the two countries had seen a number of high-level visits in the first few months of this year. Bangladesh’s Director General of Forces Intelligence Major General Mohammad Kaiser Rashid Chowdhury had made a visit to the national capital in March, followed by India’s R&AW (Research and Analysis Wing) chief Parag Jain making a trip to Dhaka.
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval has long maintained communication channels with Khalilur Rahman, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh, while Trivedi has increasingly become an important channel for discussions between the two countries, as reported earlier by ThePrint.
Siam, who was appointed as foreign secretary in Dhaka by the interim government led by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, is now tasked with managing and navigating the testy ties between India and Bangladesh. His appointment comes as Prime Minister Tarique Rahman continues to re-jig ambassadorial postings globally.
Time is running out for the two countries to find a solution for the Ganges Water Treaty, which is set to expire at the end of December. The three-decade long treaty had solved a major irritant in ties and found a way to manage the sharing of transboundary rivers. The two countries share 54 rivers. The Teesta water-sharing issue remains unresolved, with China keen to help Dhaka with the Teesta Development project.
(Edited by Archishman Ganguly)