Pm To Raise Transit Issue In Bangla

Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda will raise the transit issue as well as Indias security concerns during his visit to Bangladesh on January 6, though there are no formal agreements on the agenda.

The visit to Dhaka comes less than a month after the pathbreaking treaty on sharing the waters of the Ganga was signed between New Delhi and Dhaka on December 9 during the visit of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India.

Briefing reporters here yesterday, P P Shukla, joint secretary in the Prime Ministers Office, emphasised that India was not searching for any paybacks, in return for a generous sharing of the river waters.

This is a pure goodwill visit, he said, adding, the idea is to keep up the momentum of high-level contact. The Prime Minister is not going with a list of demands or concessions.

Nevertheless, the transit issue, Indias security concerns and the return of Chakma refugees from Tripura to Bangladesh will be on top of the agenda for talks between the two prime ministers.

Though officials in the ministry of external affairs have reiterated time and again that India will not demand a quid pro quo from Dhaka on transit rights for Indian goods through Bang-ladesh (to service the North East better and more cheaply) and illegal border trade, these issues will figure prominently on the agenda.

New Delhis subtle shift in emphasis seems to be in response to a section of domestic opinion which has been asking what India will get in return for its generosity the questions are specifically targeted at the transit issue and security concerns such as anti-Indian insurgents using Bangl-adeshi soil as a place of refuge.

The officials said Dhaka had made it clear to foreign secretary Salman Haidar as early as July last year that it would not allow Bangladesh to be used as an anti-Indian training ground and that, since that time, there was some evidence that the situation is changing.

They also denied that Bangladesh was unhappy with the limited tariff reductions applied on the export of its goods to India, saying that the list of goods had been given by Dhaka itself.

On further tariff cuts and the removal of non-tariff barriers by India, the officials were non-committal, only adding that New Delhis relations with Nepal and Bhutan were qualitatively different.