West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is set to arrive in Dhaka tonight on a three-day visit, at the invitation of Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali.
“We hope that with this visit a conducive environment will be created to resolve the pending issues between Dhaka and Delhi,” State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam told reporters at his office yesterday.
The two main pending issues between the countries are the Teesta water-sharing agreement and implementation of the land boundary agreement.
This will be Mamata’s first visit to Dhaka after she assumed office in May 2011. The same year, she was scheduled to accompany then Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh to visit Dhaka. But in protest of the Teesta agreement, she did not come.
Asked whether the gap between Dhaka and Kolkata, created due to an anti-Bangladesh attitude of Mamata, would be reduced through this visit, Shahriar said: “I have no information that she has taken an anti-Bangladesh position.”
He said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart recently discussed resolving the pending issues, when Dhaka was assured that these would be resolved.
“We were told it is a matter of time to solve the land boundary agreement. The Indian central government has engaged with the relevant state government to solve the Teesta agreement issue,” he said.
Asked if the government would discuss the alleged link between terrorism in West Bengal and Mamata’s Trinomool Congress, the minister said: “It is being discussed at other levels. The home secretary-level talks have been concluded, and in addition to that forum, there is a regular protocol which is used to address the matter.”
There is a widespread allegation that several political leaders of Trinomool Congress have contact with terrorist outfits in West Bengal, and they funded Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami to create instability here.
During the visit, Mamata will meet President Abdul Hamid, the prime minister, and the foreign minister.
She will also attend the “Amar Ekushey” programmes at the Central Shaheed Minar on Saturday to pay homage to the martyrs of the 1952 Language Movement, and visit the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum.
The West Bengal chief minister will lead a nearly 40-member team, which includes her cabinet colleagues, lawmakers, and cultural, business, and media personalities.
Her other engagements include an address to a business meet being organised by the India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in association with the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Indian Chambers of Commerce, Kolkata.
She will also meet with cultural personalities of the two neighbouring countries.