Resolve outstanding issues thru' dialogue

"Through dialogue and discussion we will be able to thrash out our differences, address the pinpricks and resolve the outstanding issues," he told the outgoing High Commissioner of India Veena Sikri when she made a farewell call on the President at Bangabhaban yesterday.

The president stated that as a close neighbour Bangladesh attaches great importance to its relations with India.

"In the past years our two countries were engaged in sustained interaction at various political and official levels with a view to further strengthening the relationship," he told the envoy.

President Iajuddin said there should be people-to-people contact between Bangladesh and India.

He assured all cooperation to her successor as and when he takes up his assignment in Dhaka.

The President underscored the need for setting up a world-class Saarc university in the Saarc region and hoped that the leaders of South Asia would come forward in this regard. He invited the President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam, to visit Bangladesh.

The outgoing Indian High Commissioner said, "I have served my wonderful three years in Bangladesh. People of Bangladesh are very fine; I have extensively visited the countryside of Bangladesh."

She informed that proposals are there to set up different faculties of Saarc universities to be set up in the capitals of the Saarc countries.

The envoy extended the Indian President's invitation to Iajuddin to visit India.

Military Secretary to the President Major General Md Aminul Karim and Secretary to the President Jafar Ahmed Chowdhury and other senior officials of Foreign Ministry and Indian High Commission in Dhaka were present on the occasion.