JOIN US
Krishna, who will hold foreign minister-level talks with minister of state for foreign affairs Hena Rabbani Khan, who is expected to be elevated to the cabinet rank, said: "Terrorism will be one of the issues on the agenda of the coming talks with the Pakistan Foreign Minister”.
Speaking to journalists while returning from Dhaka after his three-day official visit to Bangladesh, Krishna dismissed reports that terrorism was not discussed during last month’s Foreign Secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan.
The minister said: "I would like to contradict reports that terror was not part of the agenda of the talks the two Foreign Secretaries held in Islamabad and like to say that terrorism will be raised with the Pakistan Foreign Minister in the talks”.
Responding to a question on his expectations on the forthcoming meeting, Krishna said, "This is part of the ongoing engagement with Pakistan".
He said the meetings of Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers in Thimphu and Mohali had given a "big impetus" to the engagement with Pakistan to move forward. His own visit to Islamabad last year and meetings between the two countries at the levels of Foreign Secretaries and Secretaries of different ministries were part of the continuous engagement with Pakistan.
Earlier, Krishna, who addressed the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies, said the transit that India was seeking in the country would be used only for peaceful purposes.
Asked if India assured Bangladesh that it would not use the proposed transit for transporting weapons to north-eastern states because of New Delhi's unresolved border problem with China, he said: "security of each country was of paramount importance and we have to think in terms of securing our borders" with China. "We would like to work with all countries to sort out the boundary issue in a spirit of give and take", Krishna said.
“Having played a role in the birth of Bangladesh, how can India ever think of going against its [Bangladesh’s] interests?”, Krishna asked.
Referring to his statement during his Chinese visit in April last year – in which he told Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, "not a single bullet has been fired across Sino-India border"— Krishna said "this shows how responsibly and maturely India and China have behaved".
At University of Dhaka, Krishna inaugurated Kalabhaban. Speaking on the occasion, he said: “An Indian Tagore scholar of great eminence will assume the seat of the first Chair next month. I am confident that this will enrich the dialogue between us and deepen exchanges and scholarship”.
We will welcome Singh: Jamaat
DHAKA, DHNS: Just a week after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s controversial remarks on Bangladesh’s Jamaat-e-Islami and that a quarter of people of that country being anti-Indians, the organisation is prepared to forget the past and welcome him. Speaking to Deccan Herald, Jamaat assistant secretary general Abdur Razzaq said: “Prime Minister Singh is known to be a responsible person... Jamaat does not owe allegiance to ISI or any other intelligence agencies. It is a democratic party. It abides by rule of law”. Observing that Jamaat was prepared to look ahead and forget the past, Razzaq, an advocate of the Supreme Court, said: “Singh’s comments were undiplomatic, unwelcome. It is, however, welcome that he has retracted it. He is welcome in Bangladesh, he will be the guest of 15 crore people.”