On the fringes of the 8th Indian Ocean Conference (IOC) in Muscat, Oman, Bangladesh Foreign Affairs Advisor Touhid Hossain met with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday.
In a post on X, Jaishankar noted the meeting and said the topic of discussion was the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) and the two nations’ bilateral ties.
Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Bhutan, and Nepal are all members of BIMSTEC. This year, from April 2 to 4, Bangladesh will serve as the chair of the BIMSTEC conference in Bangkok. In an attempt to keep bilateral relations from becoming strained, Hossain and Jaishankar met in Oman for the Indian Ocean Conference.
Since Sheikh Hasina was overthrown and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammad Yunus took over, relations between India and Bangladesh have been tense.
After attacks on minority Hindus in Bangladesh, relations worsened even worse, raising serious worries in New Delhi.
India and Bangladesh have acknowledged the difficulties in their bilateral relationship and spoken about how important it is to cooperate in order to overcome them. The meeting was when this mutual recognition took place.
Hossain urged the Government of India to take this issue into account and emphasized the significance of calling a meeting of the SAARC Standing Committee in order to begin talks for the renewal of the Ganges Water Treaty.
The two parties took note of the numerous bilateral engagements since their last meeting on the sidelines of the UNGA in September 2024, including the Foreign Office Consultations (FOC) in Dhaka on December 9, 2024, and the involvement of Bangladesh’s energy advisor in the India Energy Week events in New Delhi on February 10–11, 2025.
In order to address border-related concerns, a conference between the directors general of the two nations’ border guarding forces was also planned for February 18–20, 2025, in New Delhi.
