 "‘We have longest coastline in Bay of Bengal:’ Jaishankar’s fitting response to Muhammad Yunus’s ‘landlocked’ jibe")
Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday (April 3) criticised chief advisor to Bangladesh’s interim government Muhammad Yunus for suggesting that India’s northeastern states were ‘landlocked’.
The top diplomat added India believed that co-operation is an integrated outlook and not about cherry-picking.
Jaishankar in his statement also touted India’s border connectivity with the nations in the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Bimstec) bloc.
“We, after all, have the longest coastline in the Bay of Bengal, of almost 6,500 km. India shares borders not only with the five BIMSTEC members, and connects most of them, but also provides much of the interface between the Indian sub-continent and ASEAN. Our North-Eastern region in particular is emerging as a connectivity hub for the BIMSTEC, with a myriad network of roads, railways, waterways, grids and pipelines,” said the Indian minister.
Muhammad Yunus’s controversial statement in China
Jaishankar’s rebuke came after Muhammad Yunus, during a recent trip to China, described India’s northeast region as ‘landlocked’ in a bid to position Bangladesh as the region’s primary maritime gateway. Yunus also hailed Bangladesh as the “only guardian of the ocean” in the region, while urging Beijing to expand its economic influence in the South Asian nation.
“Seven states of India, eastern part of India, called seven sisters… they are landlocked country, landlocked region of India. They have no way to reach out to the ocean,” said Yunus in China.
Yunus’s comments triggered a backlash in India, with political leaders from the northeast leading the charge against him.
Jaishankar in his statement on Thursday said India’s cooperation and facilitation were an essential prerequisite for the smooth flow of goods, services and people in this larger geography.
“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," Jaishankar said.
Earlier, opposition Congress party had urged India’s Narendra Modi government to tackle Bangladesh’s dangerous plans as quickly as possible.
“The Bangladesh government’s approach is very dangerous for the safety of our Northeast. The government is not watching Manipur and China has established a village in Arunachal Pradesh. Our foreign policy is in such a deplorable state that the country, for whose creation we played a major role, is now busy trying to surround us,” Pawan Khera, a spokesperson for the party, posted on X last month.
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