Regional plans under jeopardy if Indo-Bangladesh relation strains: former high commissioner to India
Tariq Karim, who served as the High Commissioner of Bangladesh from 2009 to 2014, said that the growing tensions "between India and Bangladesh can scuttle Indian plans for the South Asian neighbourhood," according to a report by The Hindu.
He maintained that the Awami League government was under increasing domestic pressure to criticise India's new citizenship law, adding that there was "palpable unhappiness among the masses of Bangladesh" regarding this.
"A lot was achieved because of the cooperation between the Indian and Bangladesh governments. But Sheikh Hasina is a politician and she will have to face the questions about India that her people will pose before her," Karim told The Hindu.
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According to Karim, all this had prompted the Prime Minister to criticise the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, of India, during a recent visit to Abu Dhabi.
"We don't understand why [the Indian government] did it. It was not necessary," she had told Gulf News during an interview in the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi.
