Pakistan should stop helping terror groups in Bangladesh says envoy

[airmarshal]

Shouldnt this thread be in 'Stupid & Funny' section?

 

[Banglar Bir]

Payback time
- India should sort out the Teesta deal with Bangladesh
Subir Bhaumik

Since Sheikh Hasina Wajed came to power in January, 2009, Bangladesh has delivered on the whole spectrum of India's concerns. It has not only chased out Northeastern rebels and relentlessly raided their bases in Bangladesh, but also handed over many top guns of the region's insurgency to India. Denied the transborder sanctuary in Bangladesh, many of these rebel groups have opened dialogue with India. Wajed's government has also attacked the jihadi groups and their ISI backers. Two Inter-Services Intelligence staffers masquerading as diplomats have been expelled. Bangladesh agencies have started a huge crackdown on fake currency rackets that the ISI uses as part of its economic warfare against India.

Dhaka has also accepted all the connectivity proposals that India has put forward. We now have a direct Calcutta-Agartala bus service via Dhaka and may soon have a similar rail service once the Akhaura-Agartala elevated rail track is completed a year from now. Most important, Bangladesh has shelved its long-held reservations and decided to provide transit for Indian goods through its territory. Trial runs by trucks from Calcutta to Agartala via Dhaka and from Dhaka to Delhi via Calcutta have been completed. India and Bangladesh have signed coastal shipping agreements that will bring down export-import costs sharply. India has started selling power to Bangladesh by aligning electricity grids.

But what has Bangladesh got in return? Three senior Bangladesh ministers speaking in seminars in northeast Indian capitals in the last two months reiterated Dhaka's firm 'zero tolerance' for terror, and backed India's surgical strikes against Pakistan across the Line of Control. They also firmly backed Wajed's decision to boycott the Saarc summit. Bangladesh has its own strong reservations against Pakistan for the latter's brazen interference in its 'internal affairs' - Pakistan's objections to the execution of pro-Pakistan war criminals or its backing of fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami and other jihadi groups. Bangladesh had perhaps decided to stay out of the Saarc summit in Islamabad, nervous about Wajed's personal security in a hostile capital like Islamabad. But is there any denying that Dhaka and, belatedly, Kabul have hugely helped Delhi in isolating Islamabad in South Asia?

In private, all three Bangladesh ministers, however, made a point: Delhi must realize that it is high time it addresses some of Dhaka's concerns about river-water sharing. For a country of peasants that Bangladesh still is, water is a serious issue. India promised an agreement on sharing the waters of the river, Teesta, in 2010 and Manmohan Singh, then the prime minister, was all set to sign it when Mamata Banerjee put her foot down. Six years have passed and Delhi has a new government, which claims that it is determined to maintain the continuity in bilateral ties with Bangladesh. But Narendra Modi, who can organize surgical strikes against Pakistan, has failed to get Banerjee to agree to the Teesta water-sharing treaty. In Dhaka, though, Modi did make an impact during his visit and Bangladeshis saw him as a man of action who would surely push the Teesta deal, after the Bengal elections.

Delhi and Dhaka have managed to implement an agreement on the contentious enclaves, but the two neighbours now need an agreement on Teesta. The first time Wajed came to power in 1996, the United Front government of H.D. Deve Gowda gave Bangladesh an agreement on Ganges water-sharing. But both Singh and Modi have so far failed to give Bangladesh an agreement on the Teesta, even after Bangladesh has comprehensively addressed the entire spectrum of Indian interests and concerns, from security and connectivity to isolating Pakistan. Mamata Banerjee has won the state elections this year to remain in power for a second term. At a time when relations with Pakistan are at an all-time low and always threatening to get worse, India has to consolidate its position in the East. For that to happen, a friendly Bangladesh led by an all-weather friend like Wajed is no luxury, but an absolutely necessity.

But successful diplomacy is never a one-way relationship and it is time for India to do some big-time payback for Bangladesh. Delhi must keep in mind that the more it delays the Teesta agreement, the greater the domestic embarrassment for Wajed and her party. Unless the Teesta agreement is done by the end of this year, she will have some real explaining to do back home. India has also got to clear its position on the 1,320 megawatt Rampal-coal-fired power project in the Sundarbans that has run into unusually rough weather - since it is providing a rallying point for Wajed's opposition from the far Left to the extreme Right, India will soon have to take a call and not leave her to face the rough weather alone.

Bangladesh's parliamentary elections are due in January, 2019. But there is a constant pressure from the country's Islamist Opposition to force an election on Wajed on the grounds that the last one was skewed and unrepresentative. The Awami League now counts on India to offset any undue pressure on Bangladesh from the United States of America to hold fresh elections that might gain momentum if Hillary Clinton is elected president. It is not unknown that Clinton wants to see the Nobel laureate, Muhammad Yunus, as the future leader of Bangladesh. India has to tell Washington in no uncertain terms (as it has done in the past) to leave Dhaka alone, now that it appreciates Wajed's determined and focused battle against Islamist terror.

Modi also has to avoid doing a Vajpayee at all costs by falling for the persuasion by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Jamaat, who now call upon Delhi (having failed to get Washington to do it) to play a role in 'restoring democracy' in Bangladesh. So far, India has decided to stay away, and it is better that we leave Wajed to handle her own country. The Islamist Opposition is always inclined to attack and corner her for her pro-India stance and her failure to get the Teesta agreement done comes in handy for them. The BNP has already staged marches highlighting Wajed's failure to secure the Teesta deal. So, instead of trying to save democracy in Bangladesh, India would do much better for its own interests to do deals like the one on Teesta, which will strengthen Wajed.

Bangladesh is also keen to involve India as a stakeholder in its ambitious four-billion-dollar Ganges barrage project, which will store an astounding quantity of water during the monsoon and release it to flush smaller rivers in the country's southwest during the lean season. Two Chinese companies have offered full funding for the project and the Japanese have offered half the money (two billion dollars), but Bangladesh's junior water resources minister, Nazrul Islam, recently said that his government is keen to involve India as a stakeholder because the Ganges flows into Bangladesh from India. An Indian team is soon to visit Dhaka for discussions.

Bangladesh is aware of India's sensitivities and have so far kept the Chinese offers in cold storage, as also the Chinese offer to build a deep-sea port at Sonadia. But water is a crucial issue and Dhaka cannot wait endlessly for India to react on projects like the Ganges barrage. When the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, comes to Dhaka just before Wajed and Xi leave for the BRICS-BIMSTEC summits in Goa, China is expected to offer $40 billion for the financing of 21 mega projects in Bangladesh. Wajed has ambitious plans for the economic development of her country and would thus welcome Chinese funds because India cannot match it. But if Delhi is keen to retain its influence in the country, it is time we deliver on Teesta and become a stakeholder in the Ganges barrage. If India has been so magnanimous with Pakistan on the Indus waters issue, in spite of four wars and unceasing hostility, the least we can do for a friendly neighbour like Bangladesh is to deliver on our promises on water-sharing.

 

[HAIDER]

Bangladesh says UN should consider declaring Pakistan terror state: envoy
September 28, 2016, 4:02 pm/ 35 Comments
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BANGLADESH: Bangladesh has said the United Nations should consider declaring Pakistan a "terrorist state" underlining India's argument that Islamabad should be isolated in the global community as a nation that exports terror to rest of world.

"For the first time in the history of SAARC, four out of its eight members have decided to boycott the summit scheduled in Islamabad. This is a very strong message," Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Syed Muazzem Ali told the international media.

He said it was up to Pakistan to decide how it wants to conduct its future foreign policy.

Demanding that Islamabad should stop helping terror groups in Bangladesh and stop interfering in the country, Ali wondered how a meeting for regional cooperation can take place when Pakistan Defence Minister Khwaja M. Asif is openly issuing threats of a nuclear attack.

"His statement shows the atmosphere is not right for SAARC. Can't talk about war and nuclear attacks," Ali said.

Bangladesh toughening its stand on Pakistan comes immediately after Indian government announced pulling out of the SAARC meeting in the wake of Uri attacks in which India blamed that a suspected Jaish-e-Muhammad suicide squad crossed over from across the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir Valley and attacked an Indian Army base killing 18 soldiers.

Along with Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Bhutan have also said they are boycotting the Saarc meet.

"All heads of state have backed India on Uri. Pakistan found no support in UNGA, the country needs to do soul searching," Ali said, arguing that it was time for India and Bangladesh to work with other states and foster closer ties.

http://nation.com.pk/national/28-Se...lare-pakistan-a-terror-state-bangladesh-envoy

India is now blackmailing Bangladesh And India successfully bent down Bangladesh and used against Pakistan .

 

[Tiger Genie]

Nothing new or unique about this. BD is just one of the latest countries offering this advise to Pakistan

 

[Skywalker]

So what should we do, start supporting the terrorist aka modi directly, may be he wants more cut.

 

[Banglar Bir]

Professor Anu Muhahmmad has been threatened with death. Who would like to see the professor dead? -- Those who feel affected by the ideas of egalitarianism he teaches and the social movement he leads against vested interests: The ones, local and foreign, who aspire to get benefited out of unbridled market economy and looting of our natural resources and polluting our environment, adversely affecting the lives of our people and destroying our ecological balance. Now, those who are for the materialization of egalitarian principles in the society, better use of our natural resources and effective conservation of environment, stand up for the patriotic professor, one of the most effective public intellectuals of our time in Bangladesh.