Commander Level Flag Meeting for Burma and Bangladesh to Begin Today

Commander Level Flag Meeting for Burma and Bangladesh to Begin Today
The border guard forces of Bangladesh and Burma will hold a flag meeting on Wednesday in the Burmese border town of Maungdaw with the aim of easing tension between the two countries ...

By Takaloo, Cox's Bazar: The border guard forces of Bangladesh and Burma will hold a flag meeting on Wednesday in the Burmese border town of Maungdaw with the aim of easing tension between the two countries, according to a media report.

"We have agreed with Nasaka to sit on the current situation along the border on the coming 21st of October," Lt. Colonel Mozammal of Bangladesh Rifles Battalion 42 stationed in Teknaf told a local daily in Cox's Bazaar.

He added that the meeting was expected to reduce current border tension and will help bring peace and stability along the border between the two countries.

The two forces already met on the issues last week but the meeting ended without reaching any agreements.

Tension along the Burma-Bangladesh border has escalated as Burma has been mobilizing troops in the area as it restarted construction of a barb-wire fence along the border line earlier this month.

According to the Bangladesh military sources, Bangladesh has also reinforced deployments of border guard paramilitary troops along the 320-kilometer border with Burma, in order to thwart any potential incursion by the Burmese troops.

Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win, however, rejected speculation about the troop deployments, calling it a "routine exercise" at a meeting with Bangladesh counterpart Dipu Moni during an interval of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue ministerial meeting in Colombo last Friday.

According to border sources, border guard forces in both countries are still on red-alert and arrests of nationals on the wrong side of the border line are reportedly increasing on both sides.