Dipu Moni goes to India tomorrow to discuss bilateral issues

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NEW DELHI, Sept 5 (BSS): Bangladesh and India will discuss the entire gamut of bilateral ties including the existing ones like the cross-border Tipaimukh Dam as Foreign Minister Dipu Moni is to arrive here on a four-day visit from Monday.
They said New Delhi was keen to 'bridge differences with Bangladesh' over sensitive issues like the Tipakimukh project and move ahead on trade and transit issues as Moni is set to hold talks with her Indian counterpart SM Krishna ahead of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's expected New Delhi later this year.
Official sources said the two sides were likely to focus on enhancing connectivity and giving a fresh momentum to expanding economic engagement that would help in reducing "trust deficit" to resolve complex issues like border management, infiltration, illegal migration and terrorism.
Former external affairs minister and currently India's Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had visited Bangladesh in February this year and met Moni apart from calling on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Finance Minister AMA Muhith and Home Minister Advocate Shahara Khatun.
Moni, will be in the Indian capital on her first official visit as the foreign minister, is also scheduled to call on Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and hold meetings with Mukherjee and several other political leaders.
This is the third time that Moni meets her current counterpart Krishna but the first official one while they had first met when she was transited through New Delhi on her way to Colombo. She also met him on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Summit in Egypt in July.
"The proposed visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India is also likely to figure during the discussions. The visit is likely to take place by the end of this year," an official familiar with the process said.
As the contentious Tipaimukh Hydroelectric Dam Project is likely to figure prominently in the discussions, New Delhi made it clear that there would be absolutely no diversion of water in the Barak as feared by a section of people in Bangladesh, the informed sources said.
Located near the confluence of the Barak and Tuivai rivers in Manipur, the project appeared to have dominated the centre stage of Bangladesh-India ties for past several months.
New Delhi already told Dhaka that no construction activity was launched as of now but after its launch the hydroelectric project would ensure augmentation of water during the lean season and decrease the prospects of flooding in monsoon.
A Bangladeshi parliamentary delegation headed by former water resources minister Abdur Razzak last month held talks with Indian government leaders and officials when the authorities cleared the points.
They visited the dam site in a helicopter from Guwahati but could not land there due to inclement weather. During that visit, India shared pertinent data with Bangladesh and stressed that the project would be beneficial to both countries.
Moni's visit will provide a good opportunity to remove any misgivings over the project, the sources said.
During Mukherjee's February visit, the two countries had signed two treaties-an agreement on bilateral trade and investment and a Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement (BIPA)-aimed at strengthening trade and investment ties between the two countries.
Officials here said, at that time India took significant unilateral initiatives like providing duty-free access to eight million pieces of ready garments, lifting a ban on FDI in Bangladesh and duty-free access to several items from Bangladesh.