Khaliur Rahman's visit to Delhi and road ahead for Bangladesh and India 

Bangladesh Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman's visit to New Delhi has signalled the intention of both Dhaka and New Delhi to move ahead by deciding to deepen the bilateral ties without efforts to brush the divergences under the carpet.

The divergence came to the surface even before Rahman landed in Delhi. 

Bangladesh called the foreign minister's stopover a "goodwill" visit, but India's official media advisory labeled it an "official" visit.

Such subtle differences may not mean much to the man-on-the-street but are noted in diplomatic corridors. The question being asked in Delhi is: did Dhaka try to tamp down expectations from Khalilur Rahman's first visit to Delhi, the highest political engagement between the two countries since BNP returned to power in February?

From New Delhi's perspective, the visit had at least one key trapping of an "official" event: the delegation-level talks at the Hyderabad House, the customary venue of formal interactions with top foreign dignitaries. 

Besides, Khalilur Rahman had meetings with National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Puri.     

The second noticeable difference were the readouts issued by the foreign ministries of the two countries. While the MEA came out with a three-para statement, the one put out by the Bangladesh foreign ministry was much longer. While the MEA statement did not mention specific issues discussed at the meeting, the one issued by Dhaka gave them out.

However, these gaps in the nature of the visit and the readouts did not come in the way of Rahman's producing some key takeaways: first, as per the MEA readout, the two sides agreed to explore new proposals to deepen bilateral cooperation through existing institutional mechanisms; secondly, they agreed on further follow-on meetings after the bilateral discussions between the two foreign ministers.

Thirdly, the Bangladesh side flagged the issues of the extradition of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her home minister Asaduzzaman Kamal both of whom have been sentenced to death by Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal. This was the first structured meeting in which the new BNP government sought the extradition of Hasina from India.   

While the issue of Hasina's stay in India is a major irritant in bilateral ties and the BNP government could not be oblivious of domestic sensitivities on the issue, the two sides were understood to have agreed is this should not be allowed to impede the overall bilateral relations which should be allowed to stabilise and turn people-centric.

India is also looking to stabilise the bilateral ties as a number of infrastructure projects in Bangladesh funded by India have been hanging fire during the tenure of the interim government. The Tarique Rahman dispensation reportedly wants to have a relook at the development partnership keeping Bangladeshi's domestic constituency in mind.

According to a report in The Hindu newspaper, during the talks in Delhi, the Bangladesh delegation is understood to have allayed security concerns for India, saying Dhaka Bangladesh would not allow its soil to be used against Indian interests nor would the new government seek security pacts with other countries.

Another interesting development on the sideline of Khalilur Rahman's visit was the handing over of a letter from Tarique Rahman, who is also BNP Chairman, addressed to BJP President Nitin Nabin. The letter was delivered to BJP Foreign Affairs Department head Vijay Chauthaiwale by BNP Joint General Secretary and Foreign Affairs Adviser to the Bangladesh Prime Minister, Humayun Kabir.

The content of the letter has not been made public but it indicates that BNP is willing to set up party-to-party ties with BJP after tentative attempts during Khaleda Zia's tenure as party chairperson to do that in the past. 

The assessment in Delhi is that Kabir's presence at the high-level meetings signal BNP's willingness for building deeper political ties, allowing both countries to go beyond a relationship that revolves around regime-specific power centres.

It may be pertinent to point out that Khalilur Rahman has gone to Mauritius to attend the Indian Ocean Conference, an event organized by pro-RSS India Foundation in collaboration with the Indian External Affairs Ministry and Mauritius government.