India expects Bangladesh’s active participation in G20

India expects Bangladesh's active participation in G20 meetings to promote the issues of mutual interests in the global discourse under India's presidency of G20, newly appointed High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh Pranay K Verma said.

While paying a courtesy call on Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on Monday at the ministry, Verma also stressed working together in the multilateral arena in supporting the candidatures floated by each country.

Momen told the high commissioner that Bangladesh is positioned to be a "regional connectivity hub" and India can reap the benefit of the connectivity outlook, as the prime minister of Bangladesh envisioned.

Momen and Verma emphasised increasing the engagements between Bangladesh and Indian north-eastern region to invigorate the connectivity and age-old relationship.

Momen underscored that Bangladesh's economic development is complementing the economic development of India in many ways. He stressed the need for international rules and norms based on free and fair connectivity among the region's countries. 

The foreign minister also mentioned the actions taken by the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government for exerting "zero tolerance" towards terrorism, radicalism and insurgency, which ultimately paved the way for establishing peace and stability of the north-eastern states of India. He urged all concerned to work towards bringing the border killings to zero.

Momen emphasised that Bangladesh is sheltering more than 1.1 million forcibly displaced Rohingyas from Myanmar. While Bangladesh has been sheltering them on humanitarian grounds, it has become an enormous challenge and burden for the country. He sought the support of India in early repatriation of Rohingyas to their country of origin Myanmar.

Verma told Momen that India is also keen to have an acceptable solution to this issue and will continue to work to ensure speedy, safe, sustainable and dignified repatriation of Rohingyas to Myanmar. 

The Indian high commissioner reiterated his commitment to work on the issues of mutual interest to further strengthen the excellent relations between the two countries. 

The foreign minister reaffirmed that Bangladesh considered India the closest and most important neighbour and termed the relations "solid and unique". 

He noted that the Bangladesh-India relationship had reached an unprecedented height under the visionary leadership of the two countries' prime ministers.