'Gen Moeen's visit to India extremely successful'

Dhaka, Mar 2: Bangladesh Foreign Affairs Advisor Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury today said Army Chief of Staff, General Moeen U Ahmed's week-long visit to India has been ''extremely successful'' for expanding cooperation between the two close-door neighbours.

''It seems to me this visit has been extremely successful. Through this visit cooperation among us will be further expanded,'' he told reporters responding to Gen Moeen's visit to New Delhi at an invitation of the Indian Army Chief. Gen Moeen, who returned home from Kolkata last night, had discussions with Indian Defence Minister A K Antony, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee as well as chiefs of the three Indian services on issues of mutual interests in New Delhi on February 25.

Dr Chowdhury said this visit would help bring stability to the bilateral relations with India as Bangladesh wants to build up good ties with all countries of this region.

Referring to Bangladesh's foreign policy, the Advisor said Dhaka wants to move forward with the countries of four groups -- SAARC, ASEAN, China and Japan and attain economic progress. He said Bangladesh has great potential having a current growth of six per cent.

Asked about discussion on bilateral issues by Gen Moeen with the India leaders, which the Foreign Ministry is supposed to do, Dr Chowdhury said ''these are traditional visits by our army chiefs but this visit was very important as we are trying to ease our bilateral relations through every step.'' The advisor said in any international relation, the interactions take place across the broad spectrum, particularly in the case of India which is a very major country on Bangladesh's border.

UNI