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The two-day foreign secretary-level talks between India and Bangladesh, which began on Tuesday, are taking place at a time when ties between the two South Asian neighbors cannot be said to be very cordial.
The fact that the two foreign secretaries are meeting after a gap of more than two years proves this point. The last such meeting was held in April 2003, during the tenure of the then Atal Behari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance Government in New Delhi.
The issues that are being discussed in the two-day meeting include frequent skirmishes between the Bangladesh Rifles and India's Border Security Force at the eastern borders, infiltration and also cooperation in water resources. Economic cooperation, defense exchanges, cultural and consular exchanges and other matters of bilateral interests would also come up for discussion during the deliberations between the two countries.
India shares some 4,000 km long border with Bangladesh, along its eastern and northeastern corridors. Matters that both sides consider as threat to their borders cropped up at times in the last couple of years.
Successive Indian governments have often accused Bangladesh government of encouraging infiltration into its territory and also providing sanctuary to the armed-rebels of the Northeast.
However, Bangladesh refutes such allegations. it has at times accused India's Border Security Force (BSF) of trespassing into its territory. It has also accused several times India of harboring anti-Bangladeshi elements.
Incidents of frequent skirmishes between the personnel of the BSF and Bangladesh Rifles, which protects Bangladesh borders, are very common, particularly along India's Tripura border.
In fact, a stretch of 6.5 km of land is lying undemarcated and there are several enclaves which either lie in India or in Bangladesh, with some even in adverse position.
Moreover, the geographical position of the land makes the demarcation practically impossible. Under the 1972 Indo-Bangladesh Accord, no defense structure can be erected within 150-yards along the border.
On the ground of men from Bangladesh trickling in to the Indian territory, India started fencing along the eastern and the northeastern frontiers as well to put an end to what it termed cross-border infiltration and other illegal activities. However, Bangladesh terms this fencing a violation of the 1975 treaty between the two countries.
Experts in India on Bangladesh affairs point out that India in the past has put too much focus on its western frontiers, or Pakistan, and this is one of the reasons for strain in its ties with Bangladesh.
"This is high-time when we should reorient our policies or in other words they should be a little focuses towards East borders as well," said a specialist on Bangladesh affairs.
Now with the two sides back on the dialogue table, it is expected that both the neighbors would be able to sort out their differences amicably.
(Xinhua News Agency June 22, 2005)
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