EAM S Jaishankar to arrive in Dhaka on Thursday ahead of PM Narendra Modi's Bangladesh visit

File Photo (Reuters)

New Delhi: External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar will be visiting Dhaka on Thursday (March 4, 2021) to finalize the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Bangladesh later this month. During the visit, S Jaishankar will call on Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina and will also hold talks with Bangladesh's Foreign minister AK Abdul Momen.

External Affairs Ministry in a release said, "​At the invitation of AK Abdul Momen, Foreign Minister of Bangladesh, External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar will pay an official visit to Dhaka on March 4, 2021."

Prime Minister Modi will be visiting the country on March 26 for Bangladesh's 50th Independence Day celebration. This will be his first visit abroad in more than a year. 

His last visit abroad was to Brazil in November 2019, and since then there hasn't been any visit due to the covid pandemic. 

A number of High-Level visits have happened from Delhi to Dhaka and vice versa. Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla also visited Dhaka in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the visit of Bangladeshi Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen to Delhi earlier this year. 

Just last week, the Home Secretaries of both countries had also held a virtual meet. 

Back in December 2020, a virtual meet at PMs level was also held, where the key focus was connectivity with the opening of the Haldibari-Chilahati rail link connecting Bangladesh with the Indian state of West Bengal. 

Currently, five out of pre-1965 six rail links have been revived, which are Haldibari-Chilahati rail link, Petrapole (India) - Benapole (Bangladesh), Gede (India) – Darshana (Bangladesh), Singhabad (India)-Rohanpur (Bangladesh) and Radhikapur (India)–Birol (Bangladesh).