Modi's visit to highlight sub-regional issues

Bangladesh expects Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit will push forward the sub-regional issues of common interest alongside elevating bilateral ties, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's international affairs adviser Gowher Rizvi has said.

"In recent years, the two countries have resolved virtually all bilateral issues and have embarked on ambitious cooperative projects," he said in an interview with the news agency.

"This gives us an opportunity to build on the extraordinary close cooperative relationship that the two countries developed over the past six years."

He said that after the resolution of the landmark Land Boundary Agreement (LBA), one of the last outstanding issues, "now the time has come to go forward and tackle bigger bilateral and sub-regional or trilateral issues, where much of our hopes lie".

Talking about the visit separately, Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka Pankaj Saran said, "...it comes against the backdrop of a very, very historic step by our government and our parliament towards ratification of the 1974 LBA and its 2011 protocol."

"In my mind there could be no better setting for his visit to Bangladesh," he said.

Modi arrives in Dhaka tomorrow.

Rizvi said the visit should be seen as a turning point in regional cooperation.He said the Bangladesh premier put connectivity at the core of her agenda, so the two PMs would likely discuss the transit issue. He also thinks that after the resolution of the long-standing maritime dispute, the two premiers are likely to engage in exploring "blue water economy" in the Bay of Bengal.

Echoing Rizvi, the Indian envoy said, "The time has come to reap the benefits of demarcation [of the maritime boundary]". Talking about domestic issues, Rizvi said the visit was also significant as BNP of late "has fortunately retracted from its earlier anti-Indian stance". India is Bangladesh's most important neighbour and trading partner, he said. Rizvi said, "Relationships become more important when we understand their significance, and when the benefits accrue to  people. The settlement in the enclaves and ending of cross-border infiltration of terrorists will bring enormous benefits to the people of both countries."

"Now we are going to sign agreements on coastal shipping, expand our inland water trade and transit, we will expand our purchase of power from India, we will move into joint basin management, jointly harness hydroelectricity, develop a common power grid that will integrate power markets between Bangladesh, India, Bhutan and Nepal...the sky is the limit."

About Teesta, Rizvi said it was "a shared problem" which was "not about India and Bangladesh, it is about people, whose livelihood depends on the river....Of course there are not enough waters to meet everybody's demand, but certainly there is enough for everybody's need."