Dhaka Seeks Transit to Pakistan via India

[Mohammed Irfan]

I think the south asian countries needs to promote trade among each other. this will not only create jobs but will also lift millions of people out of poverty and wil help in improvind the standard of living. It wil also help in people to people contact.

There should not be any restriction on trade and services between SAARC countries.

 

[eastwatch]

BD is welcome .....but i wonder if indians will allow tht.

I think, India will give us the route, because the reciprocal Delhi-Lahore-Kabul transit will be seen in India as a big diplomatic victory. GoI will celebrate the occasion with fireworks. Not bad for India if you think from India's perspective. Good relationship with two Muslim countries, BD and then Afghanistan, not that bad for India.

In reality, of course, no one country loses anything, and all the countries are benefited. Every country will be celebrating the occasion. Regional trade is needed for all the countries of this region to develop.

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

I think, India will give us the route, because the reciprocal Delhi-Lahore-Kabul transit will be seen in India as a big diplomatic victory. GoI will celebrate the occasion with fireworks. Not bad for India if you think from India's perspective. Good relationship with two Muslim countries, BD and then Afghanistan, not that bad for India.

In reality, of course, no one country loses anything, and all the countries are benefited. Every country will be celebrating the occasion. Regional trade is needed for all the countries of this region to develop.

I dont think so.
India should forget kabul dreams.

 

[silent hill]

I dont think so.
India should forget kabul dreams.

no more kabul express

 

[eastwatch]

pakistanis want good relations with bangladesh as long as its government is good.

i met a bengali in my engineering university and he said me that basucally wewere one country before, and i was surprised to see those things coming from a bengali.. so...

I am from an older generation. We people have very soft corner for Pakistan. However, it is difficult to forget also 1971 that was unnecessarily imposed on us by not handing over state power to the elected representatives of the country.

But, it is nice to read a new generation Bangali talking of Pakistan in a positive way. I think, the new generation has not seen 1971 and it may be very difficult to make them aware of 1971 lately. To see is to believe. Since they have not seen anything in 1971, they may not believe those. However, it is a good sign.

I still remember how our generation was fond of all those places like Shalimar Baag, Mountains of Baluchstan, Swat, and about gun-happy Pathan people's life style and so forth. But, blunders by greedy political people have changed every thing. Anyway, we still have soft corner for Pakistan.

A rail link may help to restore the goodwill. Many Bangalis will travel to Pakistan to see normal people are different from the politicians. After we have achieved a little economic progress, many people travel to Nepal now-a-days. So, you can expect a lot of Bangalis in Pakistan in the future.

 

[karan.1970]

It seems Pakistan govt is not going to play Kashmir politics when discussing a vital issue as transit facilities among all the SAARC countries. If what the article above says is correct, then Islamabad is waiting for the Indian nod of a Dhaka-Delhi-Lahore link before it opens its border for Indian goods to enter Afghanistan.

However, I do not think Pakistan will allow Indian goods to the central asia or Iran via Pakistan. While Afghanistan is a SAARC country, Central asian countries and Iran are not. So, these different issues may be dealt separately out of SAARC jurisdiction.

Once India is able to reach Afghanistan via Pakistan, rest of the CAR and Iran will be thru there. How will Pakistan prevent it?

 

[TicTacToe]

Do u?Kashmir,creating mutki bhani,LTTE,supporting BLA?
Its pour country we will do watever we want..... u r happy to enforce ur hukam on nepal,bhutan etc.

Are you trying to hoodwink me into getting banned? Thanks but NO THANKS!

Arrogance? r u allowing nepal,BD transit routes? NO.... while n case of Afghanistan which has no like with india ur sympathy comes alive?

I might be able to comment if you give me some source although I do think I can explain that but a source would still be appreciated.

P.S. I'm not a scholar in either Hindi or Urdu and hence as long as my meaning is conveyed, I'm fine with it.

 

[TATA]

Dhaka seeks Pak rail link via India[/b][/size][/color]
JAYANTA ROY CHOWDHURY

Dhaka, Aug. 14: Moves are afoot to link Bangladesh with Pakistan by rail through India, 63 years after the subcontinent was partitioned.

“We would like to have transit and be connected to all South Asian nations, including Pakistan,” Bangladesh foreign minister Dipu Moni told The Telegraph.

India had agreed last week to allow Bangladeshi truckers to pass through its territory on their way to Nepal and Bhutan, and promised Dhaka railway links with these land-locked nations.

Till the 1965 Indo-Pak war, goods trains used to travel between Lahore and Dhaka — then part of the same country — through India. Islamabad has already said it wants the rail link revived.

Last month, while allowing Afghan trucks transit to India, Pakistan had refused to grant Indians passage to Kabul, saying this would have to wait till Delhi gave it transit to Dhaka.

Top Indian railway officials said they were willing to run a Lahore-Delhi-Dhaka service — initially with goods trains and later, if politics allowed, with passenger trains.

This proposal was floated at a Saarc transport ministers’ conference earlier this year, the officials said. “We have talked to our Pakistani counterparts as well as to Iran on possible railway links,” an official said.

Bangladesh, which lost an estimated two million people in a genocide by the Pakistani army during its freedom struggle in 1971, had until now not been inclined towards any rail link with Pakistan.

Moni, who at 53 is Bangladesh’s second-youngest foreign minister, reflects new thinking that wants to go beyond past hostilities and suspicions. “We are in favour of the Asian Highway connectivity plans.… We want all countries on board in that project,” the minister said.

The Asian Highway is a co-operative project among countries in Asia and Europe, supported by the UN and global banks such as the Asian Development Bank. It seeks to link countries in Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and Japan, with Europe through a 7,000km trans-continental highway and railway system.

The gaps in the railway and highway networks lie mostly in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League has long been a supporter of the trans-continental road and rail expressway, but the main Opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has consistently opposed it.

The BNP’s argument is that if Bangladesh joins the highway project, that would give mainland India easier access to its northeastern states.

However, the Sheikh Hasina government has recently signed treaties to give India land and sea transit to its Northeast, which could potentially fetch Dhaka up to $1 billion a year in transit and other fees.

Hassan Shahriar, political analyst and former editor of the widely circulated Bangladeshi newspaper Ittefaq, said: “Although (past) BNP governments have been close to Pakistan, domestic political imperatives could still lead to opposition to this idea.”

However, Moni struck a confident note on Bangladesh’s plans for the future: “We are not concerned with electoral imperatives, even though there will be an election in another four years. Our plans have a long-term timeline... we have planned till 2021 (when Bangladesh will turn 50).”

The Awami League government, which came to power with a landslide victory in 2008, has been working to normalise relations with India despite the Opposition crying “sellout” every time it signs an agreement with Delhi.

A $1-billion soft-loan treaty signed in the presence of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee last Saturday, which would give Bangladesh credit to build its road and rail infrastructure and to buy railway coaches and buses, was dubbed “a 20-year treaty of ghulami (slavery)” by BNP head Khaleda Zia at a massive rally.

But the Awami League believes that better infrastructure, freer trade with India and better living conditions for the common man will keep the public on its side.

“You have to remember that the 1971 spirit (of friendship and co-operation between India and Bangladesh) is back.… The aberration (of frozen relations) in between is over,” Moni said.

The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Frontpage | Dhaka seeks Pak rail link via India

Why post a old news???

Many radicals who posts awami stooges, bharti dalal and la hasina type of crap will soon ...........

 

[silent hill]

I am from an older generation. We people have very soft corner for Pakistan. However, it is difficult to forget also 1971 that was unnecessarily imposed on us by not handing over state power to the elected representatives of the country.

But, it is nice to read a new generation Bangali talking of Pakistan in a positive way. I think, the new generation has not seen 1971 and it may be very difficult to make them aware of 1971 lately. To see is to believe. Since they have not seen anything in 1971, they may not believe those. However, it is a good sign.

I still remember how our generation was fond of all those places like Shalimar Baag, Mountains of Baluchstan, Swat, and about gun-happy Pathan people's life style and so forth. But, blunders by greedy political people have changed every thing. Anyway, we still have soft corner for Pakistan.

A rail link may help to restore the goodwill. Many Bangalis will travel to Pakistan to see normal people are different from the politicians. After we have achieved a little economic progress, many people travel to Nepal now-a-days. So, you can expect a lot of Bangalis in Pakistan in the future.

inshallah...................best of luck

 

[silent hill]

Once India is able to reach Afghanistan via Pakistan, rest of the CAR and Iran will be thru there. How will Pakistan prevent it?

if u do anything against our will we will stop your entry into afghanistan in the first place hahaha

 

[Spring Onion]

I think, India will give us the route, because the reciprocal Delhi-Lahore-Kabul transit will be seen in India as a big diplomatic victory. GoI will celebrate the occasion with fireworks. Not bad for India if you think from India's perspective. Good relationship with two Muslim countries, BD and then Afghanistan, not that bad for India.

In reality, of course, no one country loses anything, and all the countries are benefited. Every country will be celebrating the occasion. Regional trade is needed for all the countries of this region to develop.

Eastwatch we can accommodate BD have no problem with that BUT you have to stop advocating Delhi-Kabul dream of India we are NOT at all desirous of that neither we are easy with giving India route to Kabul.


Some of the traitors in our current set up though had facilitated India but change is in the air and we would love to see that facilitation reversed back.

 

[Spring Onion]

Once India is able to reach Afghanistan via Pakistan, rest of the CAR and Iran will be thru there. How will Pakistan prevent it?

that was great cracking joke

 

[TicTacToe]

Eastwatch we can accommodate BD have no problem with that BUT you have to stop advocating Delhi-Kabul dream of India we are NOT at all desirous of that neither we are easy with giving India route to Kabul.


Some of the traitors in our current set up though had facilitated India but change is in the air and we would love to see that facilitation reversed back.

But Jana, yesterday, in another thread you were advocating BD sending troops to Afghanistan. Why this sudden change of heart?

How do you expect BD to support their troops if you do not give them a passage?

 

[Spring Onion]

But Jana, yesterday, in another thread you were advocating BD sending troops to Afghanistan. Why this sudden change of heart?

How do you expect BD to support their troops if you do not give them a passage?

We are all ready to give passage to BD.

Why do you think BD amounts to India ??

read my post again my reply was to eastwatch's bringing Dehli again and again i just replied him that we are all ok with BD but we are not in mood to give such route to India at all.


BTW will all of you come to the real topic.

BD seeking trade route to Pakistan via India

 

[TopCat]

Is it only BD - Pakistan trade route? Its basicall BD-INDIA-Pakistan trade route. Indian businessman will use the route for their own trade with Pakistan as well as BD will use that for India as well as Pakistan. In the middle nepalis cargos could still join the corridor.