Bangladeshi media on Monday said that Touhid Hossain, Foreign Affairs Advisor to Bangladesh's interim government headed by Muhammad Yunus, stressed the need for resuming negotiations to reinstate the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty during his meeting with India's External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar in Muscat on Sunday.
"Diplomatic sources said that the meeting between the Bangladesh Foreign Affairs Advisor and the Indian Foreign Minister in Muscat lasted less than half an hour. During the discussion, the two emphasised the importance of working to overcome the challenges that have arisen in the current context of bilateral relations. During their discussion, the topic of organising a meeting between the Chief Advisor Professor Muhammad Yunus and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC Summit to be held in Bangkok, Thailand, in April also came up," reported Bangladesh's leading daily Prothom Alo on Monday.
In a statement released by Bangladesh's Foreign Ministry, Dhaka-based local media said that during the meeting on the sidelines of the 8th Indian Ocean Conference (IOC) in Muscat, Oman, on Sunday, Touhid Hossain underscored the necessity of holding a meeting of the SAARC Standing Committee and requested the Indian government to consider this issue.
The two nations also recognized the issues in their bilateral ties and debated the need to work together to solve them, as per the reports.
With the three-day Director General-level conference of the border forces of the two nations starting in New Delhi on Monday, Hossain and Jaishankar were hopeful that border-related issues would be resolved through talks at the meeting.
"Met Foreign Affairs Advisor Md. Touhid Hossain of the Interim Government of Bangladesh. Conversation was focused on our bilateral relationship, as also on BIMSTEC," EAM Jaishankar posted on X after his meeting with Hossain, on Sunday.
EAM Jaishankar and Touhid Hossain had also met earlier on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September, which was their first high-level encounter since the toppling of the government of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024. The meeting was an important development in the India-Bangladesh interim government relationship.
Although India has been still pushing for normalizing relations with its neighboring country, the latest Dhaka government has come under fire for spewing unfounded allegations and picking on minorities, especially the Hindu community, since the student-driven mass movement and the abrupt fall of Hasina's Awami League government in the previous year.
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri travelled to Dhaka in December to brief the interim government leadership of India's apprehensions, most importantly on the security and welfare of Bangladesh minorities.
Subsequently this year, April 2–4, Bangkok, Thailand, will host the 6th Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Summit. The country, hosting the BIMSTEC chair at the summit, is optimistic that Yunus and Prime Minister Modi will meet during the event.
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