Dhaka seeks Pak rail link via India[/b][/size][/color]
JAYANTA ROY CHOWDHURY
Dhaka, Aug. 14: Moves are afoot to link Bangladesh with Pakistan by rail through India, 63 years after the subcontinent was partitioned.
We would like to have transit and be connected to all South Asian nations, including Pakistan, Bangladesh foreign minister Dipu Moni told The Telegraph.
India had agreed last week to allow Bangladeshi truckers to pass through its territory on their way to Nepal and Bhutan, and promised Dhaka railway links with these land-locked nations.
Till the 1965 Indo-Pak war, goods trains used to travel between Lahore and Dhaka then part of the same country through India. Islamabad has already said it wants the rail link revived.
Last month, while allowing Afghan trucks transit to India, Pakistan had refused to grant Indians passage to Kabul, saying this would have to wait till Delhi gave it transit to Dhaka.
Top Indian railway officials said they were willing to run a Lahore-Delhi-Dhaka service initially with goods trains and later, if politics allowed, with passenger trains.
This proposal was floated at a Saarc transport ministers conference earlier this year, the officials said. We have talked to our Pakistani counterparts as well as to Iran on possible railway links, an official said.
Bangladesh, which lost an estimated two million people in a genocide by the Pakistani army during its freedom struggle in 1971, had until now not been inclined towards any rail link with Pakistan.
Moni, who at 53 is Bangladeshs second-youngest foreign minister, reflects new thinking that wants to go beyond past hostilities and suspicions. We are in favour of the Asian Highway connectivity plans.
We want all countries on board in that project, the minister said.
The Asian Highway is a co-operative project among countries in Asia and Europe, supported by the UN and global banks such as the Asian Development Bank. It seeks to link countries in Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and Japan, with Europe through a 7,000km trans-continental highway and railway system.
The gaps in the railway and highway networks lie mostly in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Bangladeshs ruling Awami League has long been a supporter of the trans-continental road and rail expressway, but the main Opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has consistently opposed it.
The BNPs argument is that if Bangladesh joins the highway project, that would give mainland India easier access to its northeastern states.
However, the Sheikh Hasina government has recently signed treaties to give India land and sea transit to its Northeast, which could potentially fetch Dhaka up to $1 billion a year in transit and other fees.
Hassan Shahriar, political analyst and former editor of the widely circulated Bangladeshi newspaper Ittefaq, said: Although (past) BNP governments have been close to Pakistan, domestic political imperatives could still lead to opposition to this idea.
However, Moni struck a confident note on Bangladeshs plans for the future: We are not concerned with electoral imperatives, even though there will be an election in another four years. Our plans have a long-term timeline... we have planned till 2021 (when Bangladesh will turn 50).
The Awami League government, which came to power with a landslide victory in 2008, has been working to normalise relations with India despite the Opposition crying sellout every time it signs an agreement with Delhi.
A $1-billion soft-loan treaty signed in the presence of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee last Saturday, which would give Bangladesh credit to build its road and rail infrastructure and to buy railway coaches and buses, was dubbed a 20-year treaty of ghulami (slavery) by BNP head Khaleda Zia at a massive rally.
But the Awami League believes that better infrastructure, freer trade with India and better living conditions for the common man will keep the public on its side.
You have to remember that the 1971 spirit (of friendship and co-operation between India and Bangladesh) is back.
The aberration (of frozen relations) in between is over, Moni said.
The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Frontpage | Dhaka seeks Pak rail link via India
i just replied him that we are all ok with BD but we are not in mood to give such route to India at all.
