NEW DELHI: Foreign secretary Vikram Misri will visit Bangladesh on December 9, a first by any senior Indian official since the interim government was sworn in in the neighbouring country. The Ministry of External Affairs made a formal announcement about this on Friday.
Misri is expected to have foreign office consultations with his Bangladesh counterpart Md Jashim Uddin. His visit also comes at a time when diplomatic ties between India and Bangladesh are strained over continued attack on Hindu minorities there.
Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is scheduled to visit Qatar’s Doha on December 6-7 to participate in the Doha Forum at the invitation of Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. He is scheduled to visit Bahrain on December 8-9 to co-chair the 4th India-Bahrain High Joint Commission with foreign minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani.
Addressing a media event on Friday, Jaishankar said that India has been able to deal with, and has overcome to some extent, challenges with China.
“Challenges like the one we had for four-and-a-half years, and to some extent we still do on our border with China… The firmness, determination and fortitude with which we faced that challenge, is worth noting,” said the minister.
He highlighted the way India was responding to terrorism today.
“A country that let an attack as big as 26/11 actually pass unanswered is today sending a very clear message through strikes in Uri and Balakot,” Jaishankar said, referring to India’s responses to terror strikes from Pakistani players.
He said when Sri Lanka was facing the deepest financial crisis, Indian stepped forward with the scale of assistance we couldn’t have contemplated some years ago.