Natwar Singh: Mending fences

New Delhi, July 28: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has decided to send foreign minister K. Natwar Singh to Dhaka next month to assure the Bangladesh Nationalist Party government that Delhi is sincere about improving bilateral ties.

The foreign minister’s three-day visit, which appears to be a move to do some serious fence mending with Bangladesh, will begin on August 6. This will be Natwar Singh’s first trip to the country since becoming foreign minister in the United Progressive Alliance government in May last year.

Natwar Singh may carry a letter ? though it has not been confirmed yet ? from the Prime Minister for Begum Khaleda Zia, inviting the Bangladesh Prime Minister to visit India at the earliest.

Natwar Singh, whose trip is being described as a “bilateral, goodwill” visit, is not going to Dhaka to hold the joint commission meeting that is co-chaired by the foreign ministers of the two countries. The panel has not met since July 2003.

The foreign minister is likely to discuss bilateral trade, the presence of Northeast insurgents in Bangladesh and illegal immigration into India with key leaders, including Zia, his Bangladesh counterpart Morshed Khan and the leader of Opposition and Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina.

However, the focus will be on the two key messages that Natwar Singh will carry. One, India is serious about having strong relations with whichever party comes to power in Bangladesh. Two, Delhi is keen to participate in the Saarc summit to be held in Dhaka from November 12.

The Saarc summit in Dhaka, which was to be held in early January, had to be called off twice.

First, because of the tsunami that devastated India, Sri Lanka and Maldives and second, when India, citing the deteriorating law-and-order situation, decided to stay away from the meet.

The Indian decision, especially its public announcement about the law-and-order situation in Bangladesh, had not gone down well with the government and its supporters.

A poster of Manmohan Singh that was put up in Dhaka, along with those of other Saarc leaders, was vandalised.

It has now fallen on the foreign minister to make the political gesture necessary to convince the leadership in Dhaka that India is serious about having good relations with Bangladesh.