Readers Respond
Here are some comments that came in response to Tuesday's The Daily Star news report headlined “Arbitration with UN to continue”
Fida Likhon
India will never give anything to Bangladesh. Bilateral discussions will not be fruitful. Bangladesh should go to the UN court like it did in case of Myanmar. Truth teller
It is alright to continue arbitration with UN. However, it is not a good idea to have bilateral negotiations with a country like India. Bangladesh did not gain much from India through such negotiations in the last forty years. Md. Kamal Uddin
Mass people think that the government may have relaxed its views about winning against India because of obvious reasons. We are, in fact, worried about bilateral discussions with India because we have bad experiences in negotiatiations with India in the past. Riaz Ahmed
Our foreign minister must ensure that these 'bilateral negotiations' are carried out on 'without prejudice' or non-binding basis. Amdem, USA
Bilateral negotiation will not be a very good option for Bangladesh. Not having any negotiator in Bangladesh will result in losing a large sea area to India. Moreover, as we have seen before, there are many pro-Indian politicians who will be willing to give in to India to satisfy it. Dr Zibhago
It will be suicidal to withdraw the arbitration against India concerning the maritime delimitation. The current position is that bilateral talk along with arbitration should continue concurrently. In the diplomatic sense, only bilateral talk will take the matter nowhere. Arbitration will act as a pressure mechanism on India if it really means to reach a friendly solution to the ongoing problem in the Bay of Bengal. Once the arbitration is withdrawn, everything will be withdrawn and again back to square one. I would like to suggest the foreign minister to stand firm with arbitration unless anything good and satisfactory comes out of the so-called bilateral talks. This is no child play; India will play many colourful tricks as it had done over the decades about the Farakka and other dams that caused us so much harm. Abdul M. Ismail
A bilateral negotiation on this issue is a total waste of time. Bangladesh needs to look at the past events involving such negotiations to find out the result. The ITLOS has already ruled in favour of Bangladesh against the claim of Myanmar which effectively gives us the best hand. Sellma
I hope our foreign minister is not tricked by India and it will be best if we stick to UN arbitration.
India will never give anything to Bangladesh. Bilateral discussions will not be fruitful. Bangladesh should go to the UN court like it did in case of Myanmar. Truth teller
It is alright to continue arbitration with UN. However, it is not a good idea to have bilateral negotiations with a country like India. Bangladesh did not gain much from India through such negotiations in the last forty years. Md. Kamal Uddin
Mass people think that the government may have relaxed its views about winning against India because of obvious reasons. We are, in fact, worried about bilateral discussions with India because we have bad experiences in negotiatiations with India in the past. Riaz Ahmed
Our foreign minister must ensure that these 'bilateral negotiations' are carried out on 'without prejudice' or non-binding basis. Amdem, USA
Bilateral negotiation will not be a very good option for Bangladesh. Not having any negotiator in Bangladesh will result in losing a large sea area to India. Moreover, as we have seen before, there are many pro-Indian politicians who will be willing to give in to India to satisfy it. Dr Zibhago
It will be suicidal to withdraw the arbitration against India concerning the maritime delimitation. The current position is that bilateral talk along with arbitration should continue concurrently. In the diplomatic sense, only bilateral talk will take the matter nowhere. Arbitration will act as a pressure mechanism on India if it really means to reach a friendly solution to the ongoing problem in the Bay of Bengal. Once the arbitration is withdrawn, everything will be withdrawn and again back to square one. I would like to suggest the foreign minister to stand firm with arbitration unless anything good and satisfactory comes out of the so-called bilateral talks. This is no child play; India will play many colourful tricks as it had done over the decades about the Farakka and other dams that caused us so much harm. Abdul M. Ismail
A bilateral negotiation on this issue is a total waste of time. Bangladesh needs to look at the past events involving such negotiations to find out the result. The ITLOS has already ruled in favour of Bangladesh against the claim of Myanmar which effectively gives us the best hand. Sellma
I hope our foreign minister is not tricked by India and it will be best if we stick to UN arbitration.
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