The Bangladesh foreign minister, Dipu Moni, is expected to meet the Indian water resources minister, Pawan Kumar Bansal, during her visit to New Delhi next week and they are expected to discuss ways to end the impasse over a deal to share the water of the common River Teesta.
India’s ministry of external affairs on Saturday said that Dipu would meet Bansal on Tuesday, a day after she and her Indian counterpart SM Krishna would co-chair the first meeting of the India-Bangladesh Joint Consultative Commission.
In order to end the stalemate over the proposed deal on Teesta, Krishna last Thursday had a meeting with the West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, in New Delhi.
Banerjee’s objection forced New Delhi to put off signing of the interim agreement with Bangladesh during Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Dhaka in September 2011.
A team of officials of the Indian Prime Minister’s Office is also likely to visit Kolkata soon to discuss the issue with officials of the state government of West Bengal.
Dipu will also have a meeting with the Indian home minister, P Chidambaram. She will also call on Manmohan Singh on Tuesday.
The Bangladesh foreign minister is likely to reach New Delhi late at night on Sunday. She and Krishna would co-chair the meeting of the Joint Consultative Commission, which was constituted following the Bangladesh-India Framework Agreement on Cooperation for Development that was signed during Manmohan’s visit to Dhaka in September 2011.