Editorial
Khaleda Zia's India visit
We hope the rapprochement is real
Those who have followed BNP's India policy over the years under Khaleda Zia's leadership, both while in power and especially while in the opposition, must be quite surprised by what she said during her just concluded 7 day visit to India.
Her comments that Bangladesh will never allow anti-India insurgents to operate within its soil must have sounded like music to Indian ears. Her position that her party will not be opposed to transit in the context of overall connectivity is also a position that her hosts must have cleaned their ears several times before being sure of what they were hearing.
This is so because BNP's long standing position has been to oppose to transit and look the other way while the Indian insurgent operated freely in the border areas while in power.
This newspaper has always advocated a win-win relationship between Bangladesh and India and believed that national interest of both sides can be attained through dialogue rather than mistrust and vilification, which BNP's stance often appeared to be.
We find Khaleda Zia's statements while in India to be heartening. It is a definite shift from what she and her party stood for ever since she took over the helms of BNP. We hope that this shift of policy is not a convenient posturing to placate a powerful neighbour prior to the elections due early 2014, but a reflection of a new pragmatism arrived at after serious discussion within her policy making hierarchy.
Now that she is back it will be interesting to watch how she handles the segment of her party that will find the rapprochement with India unpalatable and will, no doubt, do everything in their power to throw a spanner in the new thinking. It will not be wise for the BNP chief to be fickle on this matter and she is likely to lose whatever credibility she has gained during this tour if she changes her mind about relations with India.
If Khaleda Zia's recently articulated views prove to be more real than a set of passing remarks made to please hosts who were unusually warm and welcoming- a fact that has not been lost to the ruling Awami League-, then it will mark serious maturing of a vital bilateral relationship that has suffered from arrogance, neglect, prejudice, misinformation and big brotherly attitude.
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