Defence Cooperation: Indian army chief arrives on March 30
Indian Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat arrives in Dhaka on March 30 on a two-day visit to discuss bilateral defence cooperation with top Bangladesh officials.
He would be visiting Dhaka ahead of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tour of India next month when the two countries are expected to ink a comprehensive defence cooperation deal.
Gen Rawat will fly in from Kathmandu at the invitation of his Bangladesh counterpart Gen Abu Belal Muhammad Shafiul Huq.
Though diplomatic sources in Dhaka said this would be a return visit by the Indian army chief after Gen Belal's September 2015 tour of India, officials said the visit holds a special significance in the light of improving bilateral military cooperation.
According to diplomats, officials and foreign relations experts, the Indian army chief would travel to Dhaka apparently to firm up the defence deal expected to be signed on April 8 following the official talks between Hasina and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Hasina will visit India on April 7-10 when the two countries would also ink at least 30 agreements, Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) and documents, heavily focused on development projects in the areas of connectivity, infrastructure and energy.
“We have so far finalised about 18-20 deals which can be signed anytime…we are expecting to complete finalising over 30 deals before the beginning of the PM's visit. We have around 50 proposed deals in hand,” said a foreign ministry official.
During his first visit to Bangladesh, Gen Rawat will call on President Abdul Hamid, PM Hasina and hold meetings with top officials of the armed forces to cement the defence relations with Bangladesh.
There had been regular exchange of high level bilateral visits by defence officials from both the countries in recent years.
Former Bangladesh Army chiefs Gen Moeen U Ahmed (retd), Gen Md Abdul Mubeen (retd) and Gen Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan (retd) visited India in February 2008, November 2011 and April 2013. Besides, the chiefs of Navy and Air Force, Border Guard Bangladesh and Bangladesh Coast Guard had been to India last year.
On the other hand, former Indian army chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag (retd) visited Bangladesh in June 2015 and former Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha came here in February last year.
Former Indian defence minister Manohar Parrikar made his first visit to Bangladesh on Nov 30-Dec 1 last year.
DEFENCE COOPERATION DEAL
Dhaka and New Delhi have agreed to sign an MoU on bilateral defence cooperation.
Wishing anonymity, a senior foreign ministry official said: “We are going to sign an MoU on defence cooperation with India on April 8… there is nothing contentious [in the deal] and no threat to our defence and sovereignty. It's not at all like the umbrella defence agreement which we signed with China.”
Ruling out rumours about the deal, he said Bangladesh and India already set a mechanism to cooperate in security and defense fields. The proposed MoU would help the two neighbours enhance cooperation to enable their forces to fight against terrorism and violent extremism, he added.
The official, who deals with the India-Bangladesh matters, said the armed forces of the two countries collaborate with each other in many areas, but there was no such bilateral deal. That's why the two countries were considering institutionalising the existing cooperation mechanism.
Asked about the salient features of the proposed defence deal, an Indian diplomat in New Delhi told to The Daily Star that agreements were expected on the lines of cross-border cooperation between the two countries' agencies. Any deal with respect to supply of defence equipment was highly unlikely.
He said the proposed defence deal was being prepared to the “comfort level” of Bangladesh and there would be no element in it which might not be suitable to Bangladesh's needs.
About Indian's offer of defence line-of-credit, the diplomat said his country made the offer purely to buy equipment needed for UN peacekeeping operations, anti-land mining vehicles, medical and disaster relief efforts and search and rescue operations etc.
He said New Delhi was ready to cooperate and collaborate with Bangladesh's defence forces to set up manufacturing and service centres for the common defence platforms that both countries possesses, like the Russian defence hardware.