Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on Monday said that his discussions with Bangladesh Foreign Adviser Touhid Hussain gave an opportunity to take stock of the relations between both the countries.
Misri arrived on an Indian Air Force jet for a day-long visit on Tuesday for high level talks with the Foreign Adviser, his Bangladeshi counterpart and other high level officials amid strained relationship between both the countries.
“Today’s discussions have given both of us the opportunity to take stock of our relations and I appreciate the opportunity today to have had a frank, candid and constructive exchange of views with all my interlocutors,” he told the media after meeting the Foreign Adviser.
“We also discussed recent developments and I conveyed our concerns including those related to the safety and welfare of minorities.. We also discussed regrettable incidents of attacks on cultural and religious properties,” he added.It is the first time that an Indian official is visiting Bangladesh for high level talks since Sheikh Hasina was ousted as Prime Minister on August 5.
Soon after his arrival in Dhaka, Misri met his Bangladeshi counterpart Mohammad Jashim Uddin and held one-on-one talks before the formal meeting with delegates from both sides.
“The meeting between our foreign secretary Jashim Uddin and his counterpart Vikram Misri is taking place as scheduled at the state guest house Padma. They first held brief one-on-one talks and then the formal meeting began with delegates from both sides,” a Bangladeshi foreign ministry official said, according to PTI.
Bilateral ties deteriorated since Sheikh Hasina’s ouster
The close ties between India and Bangladesh came under severe strain after Sheikh Hasina was forced to leave the country in the face of a massive anti-government protest in August. Nobel Peace laureate Mohammad Yunus came to power days after Hasina fled to India.
The relations deteriorated further in recent weeks over attacks on Hindus and the arrest of Hindu monk Chinmoy Krishna Das.
There have been a spate of incidents of violence against Hindus and other minorities, as well as attacks on temples in Bangladesh in the last few weeks that triggered strong concerns in New Delhi.
In September, Bangladesh’s foreign affairs adviser Mohammad Touhid Hossain met briefly with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar in New York on the sidelines of a UN general assembly meeting.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Yunus led their respective delegations at the UN summit of heads of state and government in September but had no meeting.
Misri is also scheduled to pay a courtesy call on Yunus.
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