India To Confirm Sushma Swaraj's Dhaka Visit

India's External Affairs Ministry today said it can confirm at a later stage whether External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will visit Dhaka in September for attending a meeting of the joint consultative committee (JCC).  

Asked about reports in Bangladesh media that Swaraj would be visiting for the joint consultative meeting and if any meeting is planned in early September, the new official spokesperson of the ministry Raveesh Kumar told the media here that “I will have to share the same thing that once I have the information, we will share it with you, which we have been doing, my predecessors have been doing. 

“In such visits, the programme is always in a state of flux, whether EAM (the External Affairs Minister) is going to Bangladesh or not, I think I can confirm at a later stage,” he said. 

A section of Indian media also carried reports recently that Swaraj will travel to Dhaka to attend the JCC meeting which will review the progress in implementation of the decisions taken during Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to Delhi in April this year. 

Sources here said that a visit by the Indian External Affairs Ministry is very much in the realms of possibility because both sides are keen to ascertain the ground report of the forward movement of projects identified for cooperation and decisions taken during Hasina's visit. 

During Hasina's latest visit, India and Bangladesh signed 22 pacts and New Delhi announced a five-billion-dollar soft loan for Dhaka out of which 4.5 billion dollars are earmarked for toning up infrastructure in Bangladesh. The other $500 million is for Bangladesh buying defence equipment from India in the first-ever such MoU between the two countries. 

However, a deal on the Teesta river water-sharing issue remained as elusive as ever in the face of sustained opposition from West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee who had held talks with both Hasina and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the Bangladesh Prime Minister's visit to Delhi in April. 

If Swaraj's forthcoming visit materializes, it would be her second to Bangladesh as External Affairs Minister since 2014. She had visited Bangladesh from June 25 to June 27, 2014.