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BIMSTEC Summit

PM likely to hold meeting with Modi

Diplomatic Correspondent
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to attend the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) summit on August 30-31 in Nepal. During the summit, she is likely to hold a bilateral meeting with her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.
According to diplomatic sources, the Hasina-Modi meeting on the sideline of the summit is crucial in the run-up to the national election in Bangladesh, likely to be held in December this year.
PM will hold meetings with other leaders as well. There is also possibility of a meeting with Myanmar President Win Myint.
After the SAARC summit, scheduled for November 15-16, 2016 in Islamabad, got stalled, India has been actively pushing BIMSTEC as an alternative to SAARC, according to diplomatic sources.
Pakistan on Sept 30, 2016 announced postponement of the summit after India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka pulled out of the SAARC event, indirectly blaming Pakistan for creating a discouraging environment.
Immediately after the postponement, India hosted the leaders of BIMSTEC (that includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand] during the BRICS Outreach Summit in Goa in October 2016.
BIMSTEC has focused intensely on trade and investment, technology, energy, transport and communications, tourism, fisheries, agriculture, cultural cooperation, environment and natural disasters, public health, poverty
alleviation, people-to-people contacts, counter-terrorism and climate change.
BANGLADESH COMMITTED TO BIMSTEC
Meanwhile, Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Syed Muazzem Ali has called on BIMSTEC nations to enhance their security cooperation to "defeat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations”.
He was speaking at a panel discussion yesterday with heads of BIMSTEC member states' missions in India.
Referring to Sheikh Hasina's zero-tolerance approach to terrorism, Muazzem Ali said that Bangladesh is off-limits to any terrorist activities.
The envoy said security cooperation among BIMSTEC countries has increased.
Bangladesh sees BIMSTEC forum as a tool for economic development through regional integration, he said.
The envoy mentioned that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was one of the four founding leaders who had inspired the launching of BIMSTEC in 1997.
Hosting the BIMSTEC Secretariat in Dhaka since 2014 is a testimony of Bangladesh's commitment, he added.
The panel discussion was organised by Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.