B\'desh FM to visit India on Wed in his maiden foreign trip

B'desh FM to visit India on Wed in his maiden foreign trip

Press Trust of India  |  Dhaka 

Bangladesh's newly-appointed Foreign will travel to on Wednesday in his maiden overseas trip during which he will attend the 5th India-Joint Consultative Commission (JCC) meeting and held talks with top leaders.

Momen, who will lead a high-level delegation, said on Tuesday that during his visit he would seek increased Indian support to resolve the Rohingya crisis.

"I am visiting on my first foreign trip to honour our great neighbour, the world's greatest democracy...among other things I want to consult with my counterpart about the early resolution of the Rohingya crisis as it may affect the regional stability," the told

Momen said he expected enhanced Indian support in resolving the crisis as "it is likely to appear as an issue for the regional security".

has said it gave makeshift refuge to over one million Rohingya Muslims on humanitarian ground as they fled to evade a brutal military crackdown but unless the crisis was resolved immediately it could expose the country and its neighbours to threats of radicalization.

Momen acknowledged that was the first foreign leader to greet her counterpart Sheikh soon after the December 30 election results were announced.

"We always found them beside us in our crises. Indian people gave their lives for our 1971 independence," he said.

During the JCC meet, the entire gamut of bilateral relations ranging from trade and investment, security cooperation, connectivity, border management, defence cooperation, energy, shipping, and people-to-people exchanges are likely to come up for discussion.

"We have some issues as neighbours everywhere in the world have, but by now we amicably resolved several of them like the major maritime boundary and the land boundary and expect the others to be solved as well since we now enjoy the warmest ever relations," he said.

The minister did not elaborate the expected deals with during his visit but officials said the two could ink five memorandums of understanding (MoUs).

"The two sides so far agreed to sign three MoUs and they could reach a consensus on another two by tomorrow," a said, preferring anonymity.

He said one of the three MoUs involved cooperation of the two in graft investigation while the two others were over TV broadcasting and medicinal plants.

They said Bangladesh's (ACC) and (CBI) were expected to sign the first MoU, state-run Bangladesh Television (BTV) and Prasar would sign the second one and the two health ministries would ink the third one.

During his visit, Momen will call on Modi on Thursday morning and hold talks with his Indian counterpart on Friday. He will meet former at the latter's residence.

The last JCC meet was held in on October 22-23, 2017 when Swaraj led the Indian delegation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Tue, February 05 2019. 22:40 IST