DHAKA: India and Bangladesh have reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthening the expanding multifaceted cooperation, as foreign ministers of the two nations met in Tashkent and discussed a range of issues, including the bilateral and regional connectivity, COVID-19 and the repatriation of the Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Bangladeshi counterpart AK Abdul Momen met in Uzbekistan’s capital on the sidelines of an international conference on the challenges and opportunities of regional connectivity in Central and South Asia on Thursday.
They discussed a range of issues, including the bilateral and regional connectivity, COVID-19 and vaccination situation in both the countries and the repatriation of the Rohingya to Myanmar, bdnews24.com reported.
Both sides reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthening the partnership and expanding multifaceted cooperation.
They also emphasised the need for resuming the activities of various joint mechanisms soon after the COVID scenario in both countries improves.
Jaishankar expressed his “happiness as the supply of vaccination to Bangladesh is back on track from a diversified external source, including under COVAX arrangement”, the foreign ministry said here in a statement.
Bangladesh so far was dependent on India’s Serum Institute.
India halted the export of the Covid vaccine in March after the Serum Institute of India supplied 7 million AstraZeneca jabs to Bangladesh.
As per an agreement, Serum is supposed to ship 30 million doses.
“Happy to meet with Bangladesh FM Dr AK Abdul Momen on the sidelines of the Tashkent Connectivity Conference. A good opportunity to review the progress in our ties, including its connectivity aspects,” Jaishankar tweeted after the meeting.