PM Modi meets Bangladesh’s Muhammad Yunus in Bangkok, first since Sheikh Hasina’s ouster

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus during his visit to Thailand for the BIMSTEC Summit Friday, the first meeting between the two since the latter assumed power after the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The two were also seated next to each other at the BIMSTEC leaders’ dinner Thursday night.

The meeting comes at a time when Yunus’s statement that Northeast India is “landlocked” and Dhaka is the “only guardian of the ocean for all this region” had created a row.

The meeting between PM Modi meets Bangladesh’s Muhammad Yunus in Bangkok. (Photo: MEA)

Addressing the 20th BIMSTEC Ministerial Meeting in Bangkok, Jaishankar had said, “Our Northeast region in particular is emerging as a connectivity hub for the BIMSTEC, with a myriad network of roads, railways, waterways, grids and pipelines. The completion of the Trilateral Highway will connect India’s Northeast all the way to the Pacific Ocean, a veritable game-changer.” “We are conscious that our cooperation and facilitation are an essential prerequisite for the smooth flow of goods, services and people in this larger geography,” he said, adding, “keeping this geo-strategic factor in mind, we have devoted increasing energies and attention to the strengthening of BIMSTEC in the last decade. We also believe that cooperation is an integrated outlook, not one subject to cherry picking.”