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Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 4.43 GMT |
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Rajapaksa's visit boosts South Asian
cooperation - Daily Star Editorial |
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Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's three-day visit to Bangladesh can properly be looked at as a boost to bilateralism. The fact that as many as five memoranda of understanding have been signed in such crucial areas as trade, agriculture, fisheries, vocational education and science and culture testifies to the various possibilities of cooperation open before the two countries, said the Daily Star editorial yesterday (20).
As part of South Asia, indeed as members of SAARC, Colombo and Dhaka have been significant players in the region. The requirement now is for them to carry forward the spirit of bilateralism in a way that will further strengthen the links among SAARC nations, the editorial added.
Full text of the editorial:
Rajapaksa's visit
Boosting South Asian cooperation
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's three-day visit to Bangladesh can properly be looked at as a boost to bilateralism. The fact that as many as five memoranda of understanding have been signed --- in such crucial areas as trade, agriculture, fisheries, vocational education and science and culture testifies to the various possibilities of cooperation open before the two countries. As part of South Asia, indeed as members of SAARC, Colombo and Dhaka have been significant players in the region. The requirement now is for them to carry forward the spirit of bilateralism in a way that will further strengthen the links among SAARC nations.
The five MoUs are certainly an assertion of the way Bangladesh-Sri Lanka ties are poised to develop. The expectation is that these MoUs will take relations between the two countries to new heights of bilateralism at an active level. In this context, President Rajapaksa's emphasis on the need for strong political relations is a matter to be pondered by the leadership of the two countries.
The president's discussions with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina focused necessarily on combating terrorism, which is just as well given the difficulties both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have faced as a result of extremism, albeit at different levels. Cooperation in dealing with and snuffing out terrorism in the two countries can be looked upon as a test case, the results of which could be applied to tackling terrorism in the SAARC region as a whole. There is too the matter of food security which Dhaka and Colombo, in league with other countries in the region, should be giving serious consideration to.
An all-important issue for Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is establishing direct air and marine connectivity, a point pertinently raised by the Bangladesh prime minister. Such a step will not only be a spur to greater people-to-people links but also yield encouraging results through promoting trade between the two nations. At a time when the nations of Europe and the Americas are exploring newer grounds of economic cooperation, it is vital that twenty six years after the founding of SAARC, the countries of South Asia break new ground in economic and political cooperation before they can break bread together.
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