Pranab: Teesta deal to be inked soon
Emerging from a 40minute meeting, Bangladesh foreign minister Dipu Moni told reporters that she had raised the Teesta and land boundary deal with Mr Pranab Mukherjee who, she said, expressed the hope that both the issues would be solved soon.
She said Mr Mukherjee expressed the hope that the Teesta deal, which had run into rough weather following West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s opposition in September 2011 would be inked soon and that a bill on approving the land boundary agreement would be introduced in the current Budget Session of Indian Parliament.
Mr Mukherjee, while speaking to a Bangladeshi channel, termed terrorism as the “most frightful threat” to peace after the World War II and the Cold War and cautioned against distinguishing between good terrorism and bad terrorism.
He arrived here on an Air India One flight and was received by Bangladesh President Mohammad Zillur Rahman at the VVIP lounge of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. A galaxy of senior ministers of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Cabinet were also present. Mr Pranab Mukherjee was given a ceremonial reception at the airport, including a 21- gun salute, after which he inspected the guard of honour by the three services of Bangladesh defence forces.
The visit by Mr Mukherjee and his wife Suvra Mukherjee is invested with a lot of symbolism and takes place in the backdrop of spiralling violence by Jamaat- e- Islami, whose three top leaders have been convicted by international war crimes tribunal of genocide, rape and crimes against humanity during Bangladesh’s Lliberation War in 1971.
— PTI