Dhaka : Bangladesh’s interim head Muhammad Yunus has once again stirred diplomatic unease by again treading into the issue of India’s northeast region. It happened as Pakistan’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee chairperson, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, visited Dhaka over the weekend and met Yunus.
Yunus tweeted images of his meeting with the Pakistani general. The map shows India’s seven northeastern states as part of Bangladesh territory – aligning with calls by radical Islamist groups for a “Greater Bangladesh”. India’s Ministry of External Affairs has not reacted to the controversy yet. However, this is not the first time that Yunus has invoked India’s northeast. Over the past few months, the Nobel laureate has made repeated references to India’s “landlocked” northeastern states in foreign engagements.
They have no way to reach out to the ocean, Yunus told Chinese officials. We are the only guardian of the ocean for all this region. So this opens up a huge possibility. So this could be an extension of the Chinese economy, he further said. India’s access to the northeast, via the ‘Chicken’s Neck’ corridor in north Bengal, has been a challenge and over the last decade, New Delhi has successfully engaged with Dhaka on transit routes in the region.
Jaishankar called it a key connectivity hub for the Bimstec — a grouping that includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. India also cancelled a transhipment agreement that allowed Bangladeshi goods to move through Indian territory en route to Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar.
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