Safety of minorities in Bangla...Modi talks tough with Yunus

New Delhi/Bangkok: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday urged Bangladesh chief advisor Muhammad Yunus to avoid any inflammatory rhetoric and instead focus on building a constructive and pragmatic relationship with India, the Ministry of External Affairs said.

In his first talks with Bangladesh's chief advisor Muhammad Yunus, PM Modi said "that any rhetoric that vitiates the environment is best avoided". The Prime Minister said that such an approach would help both nations.

Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who took over as the chief adviser of an interim government in Dhaka after Hasina's exit, met Modi on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC summit in Bangkok. As per the statement released after their conversation, the Prime Minister also highlighted that cooperation between the two countries has brought tangible benefits to the people of both countries.

PM Modi's statement came days after Muhammad Yunus, in a bilateral talk with China, described India's Northeast as "landlocked" and positioned Bangladesh as the "guardian of ocean access" for the region. The Bangladeshi leader's remark drew sharp criticism from Indian leaders, with EAM S Jaishankar highlighting India's strategic role in the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). "We, after all, have the longest coastline in the Bay of Bengal, of almost 6,500 km. 

India shares borders with five BIMSTEC members, 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," Jaishankar said in a statement.