Suhasini Haider
The Hindu
November 21, 2014
Referring to visits in the past few months by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Pranab Mukherjee, Bhutan’s Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay said India-Bhutan relations had reached an “unprecedented level of cooperation and understanding.”
In an exclusive interview to The Hindu, Mr. Tobgay denied speculation that the high-level visits were tied to India’s worries over Bhutan-China relations. “There is a theory that India’s leaders are visiting Bhutan in quick succession, and Mr. Modi made Bhutan his maiden foreign visit destination because the government is concerned about Bhutan’s security. Our friendship is deep and this is a celebration of it. The rest are nonsense theories,” Mr. Tobgay said.
Boundary talks
He also dismissed reports of alleged Chinese incursions into Bhutan and also reports of India planning helipads along the Bhutan border, but said that boundary resolution talks with China were “going very well.”
In his first comments on the talks, since a Bhutanese delegation led by Foreign Minister Rinzin Dorje met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing in July this year, Mr. Tobgay said, “We have now had 22 rounds of discussions since 1984 and based on the Guiding Principles (1988) and agreement for Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity (1998). Where there have been issues, we have raised them. Right now, the discussions are going very well with the Chinese.”
