From China Daily
DHAKA, January 20 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh and India, two neighbors in South Asia, Thursday were optimistic to resolve their longstanding issues related to the common border within this year.
The high optimism was expressed at a joint press conference held here in Dhaka at the end of the two-day Home Secretary level meeting of Bangladesh and India.
Bangladeshi Home Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder and Indian Home Secretary G.K. Pillai led their respective delegations to the talks.
The issues which left unresolved over the decades include transfer of enclaves and adversely possessed lands between the two neighbors.
Another problem is killing of Bangladeshi civilians by Indian Border Security Force (BSF) on charge of trespassing of the common border.
Bangladeshi Home Secretary Sikdar expressed the hope that all border related issues including the transfer of enclaves and adversely possessed lands would be settled within a couple of months.
About the killing of the Bangladeshi civilians at border, Indian Home Secretary Pillai reassured their commitment to zero death of innocent unarmed civilians as the Bangladesh side called for maximum restraint and halting the killing by Indian BSF.
The Indian side expressed regret for the killing of a 15-year- old girl by the BSF on January 7 as she was trying to return home from India where she was working. He said the court of inquiry already started investigation and guilty must be punished.
Pillai said the death figure in the killing at the border has come down to 31 in 2010 and "even then we do not feel comfortable with these 31 deaths. We are committed to zero death," he added.
A joint press release said the meeting discussed issues related to security, border management and increasing cooperation of law enforcement agencies to combat with smuggling of arms and narcotics drugs.
The meetings also discussed printing of fake Indian currency notes, activists of extremists and terrorists, insurgency, trafficking of women and children and repatriation of prisoners jailed in the two countries.
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