Bangladesh has asked India to immediately lift economic blockade imposed on Nepal.

Minister for Commerce Tofail Ahmed of Bangladesh talking to one of the newspapers based in India while raising question mark on the existence of SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) has said that the blockade imposed by India on Nepal has the potential to jeopardize shared prosperity of the south Asian population.

“The Indian blockade aimed at Nepal is no longer a bilateral matter as it has the potential to hurt the plans for shared prosperity among the SAARC countries”, said Minister Tofail talking to The Hindu from Bangladesh over phone

“Such blockades are not in the spirit of regional cooperation of South Asia for which the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation was formed”, he also said.

He also claimed that Bangladesh has been tracking the development but has so far avoided commenting.

“In June this year, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal agreed to create the framework for BBIN transport network. BBIN is an unprecedented step that we took aiming at shared prosperity in South Asia. BBIN was meant to facilitate movement of commercial vehicles across the borders of Bhutan, Nepal, India and Bangladesh. Such blockades hit at agreements like the BBIN,” Tofail told The Hindu.

The Minister also told the Indian media that he is not in favour of digging any dispute between Nepal and India but feels that such blockades set a negative precedent in this age of globalisation and free trade agreements.

“We do not have massive bilateral trade with Nepal. But Bangladeshi truck owners, ports and companies might also get affected negatively if the blockade continues against Nepal. We hope the blockade is temporary and a solution will be found soon,” he said while explaining that the government of Bangladesh seeks an end to such obstructions and blockades in South Asian region so that common people are spared hardships.

@telegraph