Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali on Tuesday said he knew nothing about ongoing media speculations that the Teesta River water sharing deal would be signed with India for an interim period before the next general elections.
"Sorry, I do not know. I have no comment," he said while responding to a query from reporters during a briefing at the Foreign Ministry on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s upcoming Canada visit.
Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque was also present at the press conference.
Earlier, a leading Bangla daily reported that Bangladesh and India would sign the Teesta water sharing deal for an interim period of three years before the 11th national polls.
Before Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's recent Kolkata visit, the foreign minister had said there was no progress over the deal yet and the purpose of the visit was different.
"You will come to know about it in due time," he had told reporters when asked about the deal’s progress, without elaborating further.
Hasina had separate meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on May 25 and 26, respectively.
After the visit, Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said the Indian government still had one year left and their government could not be tagged with failure in terms of resolving the Teesta water sharing deal with Bangladesh.
The Indian side said no resolution over the issue was possible without taking all stakeholders on board.
West Bengal is the main stakeholder and they are talking frequently to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Sushma had said.
Mamata in April last year gave an alternative proposal for supplying the waters of the Torsa River instead of Teesta as West Bengal would suffer if Teesta water had to be shared.
She said the federal Indian government could not bypass the West Bengal government as it was the state that has to share the Teesta waters and has to weigh pros and cons of how much it will be affected by the proposed deal.
Foreign Minister Mahmood Ali on Tuesday said the issue of bringing back one of the killers of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman -- Noor Chowdhury -- will also be discussed during Prime Minister Hasina's visit to Canada.
The prime minister and her entourage will leave for Canada on June 7. She will return home on June 12.
Last Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his country would welcome several world leaders, including Hasina, to the Group of 7 (G7) Summit to take part in a special outreach session.
