Border row with India to be resolved soon: B'desh

Bangladesh High Commissioner Tariq Ahmed Karim on Wednesday said Bangladesh is keen to resolve border disputes with India 'as quickly as possible', which would encourage formal trade between the two neighbours.

"We want to resolve all the boundary disputes as soon as possible. Once they are resolved, the Indira-Mujib boundary treaty can be rectified," Karim said while referring to the 4098-km-long border Bangladesh shares with the North-East and West Bengal.

Maintaining that the border dispute had been a sore point in the relationship between the two countries, he said of late, the cooperation in this regard was going on smoothly and the joint working group would hold its meeting soon to discuss the areas of difference.

"Once the border dispute is resolved, the border guarding forces on both sides will not point guns at each other and instead would carry out joint patrolling to ensure that anti-national elements do not have a free run," the Bangladesh envoy said, a week after heavy exchange of fire between personnel of the Border Security Force and the Bangladesh Rifles at Muktapur in Meghalaya.

Karim said the informal trade between the two countries is now two and a half times more than the formal trade. Last year, the formal trade was worth $ 3 billion. A well-demarcated border will encourage formal trade, he said.

"This is a big loss of revenue which could have helped in poverty elimination and other developmental projects. Poverty is the breeding ground for terrorism. We will root it out by preventing smuggling and human trafficking," he said.

The Bangladesh high commissioner, who will also be visiting the Dawki border during his three-day visit to Meghalaya, said both the countries have in principle agreed to revive border haats (markets).

"Initially, we have identified three places and one of them is likely to be opened soon. But to encourage land trade, the infrastructure on both sides of the border has to be compatible," he said, adding that infrastructure has to be upgraded on both sides.