LBA passage BD’s great political achievement: PM

GAZIPUR, May 9 (UNB): Prime Minister (PM) Sheikh Hasina said on Saturday it is the great political achievement of her government in diplomatic arena as the Indian Parliament has cleared a bill to ratify the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) with Bangladesh.
"It's a great political achievement of the government in diplomatic arena," she told a function at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agriculture University here marking its 16th founding anniversary.
The PM said, "Yesterday night (Friday night) I talked to the Indian Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, Sonia Gandhi, the chief ministers of Assam, Tripura and West Bengal to convey the heartiest thanks on my behalf and the people of Bangladesh."
Hasina said not a single MP of the Indian Parliament opposed the passage of the Bill. "This Bill was passed unanimously, this is a great achievement for Bangladesh," she said. The legislation is the 119th amendment to the Indian Constitution.
Both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha unanimously cleared the historic bill which would operationalise the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) with Bangladesh providing for exchange of territories to settle the 41-year-old border issue.
Hasina said the matter was included in 1974's Mujib-India treaty and Bangladesh ratified it then. "But India couldn't ratify the treaty for their internal problems," she said. The Prime Minister also mentioned that the governments came to power in Bangladesh after 1975 never asked India to ratify the agreement.
"After coming to power in 1996, Awami League (AL) took up the matter and started negotiations with India," Hasina added. In this connection, the PM said the demarcation of border had started then. "We agreed on the whole border area's demarcation except some 6.5 km," she added.
Hasina mentioned that coming to the power in 2001 the BNP-Jamaat alliance did not advance the matter further.
When we came again to the power in 2009, the government initiated the matter again, she said.
In this connection, Sheikh Hasina said when she visited India on January 10, 2010 a joint statement was issued and the matter of LBA was included in that joint statement. "Before that no one talked about the LBA," she added.