Bangladesh has sought a regional dialogue among four South Asian
countries to ensure a win-win solution of trans-boundary river
disputes.

"We would like to enter into a regional dialogue to resolve
trans-boundary water disputes through discussion," Water Resources
Minister Hafiz Uddin Ahmed told a World Bank-sponsored workshop in
Dhaka on Sunday.

"A win-win situation is possible only if we include Nepal and Bhutan
in Indo-Bangladesh dialogue," he said.

Experts participating in the workshop asked the World Bank to
formulate a basin-based water resources strategy.

Among other participants were Quamrul Islam Siddique, regional
chairman of the Global Water Partnership, BRAC executive director
Abdul Muyeed Chowdhury, Planning Commission member Dr Quazi
Mesbahuddin Ahmed, director general of Bangladesh Institute of
Development Studies Dr. Quazi Shahabuddin, Dhaka WASA managing
director ANH Akhter Hossain, Chittagong WASA chairman AFM Solaiman
Chowdhury and Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh
president Tawfiq M Seraj.

Among the World Bank participants were David Hughart, John Briscoe,
Herb Weibe, William Collis, Karin Kemper and Mohinder S Mudahar.

Different sessions of the day-long workshop were chaired by former
government secretaries Dr ATM Shamsul Huda and Dr. Zahurul Karim,
IUCN country representative Dr. Ainun Nishat, Dhaka University
professor Sajjadur Rashid and Bangladesh University of Engineering
and Technology professor M Feroze Ahmed.

Brushing aside a World Bank advisor's comment supporting the river
inter-linking mega project of India, Hafiz said, "Transferring water
from one basin to another harming the
lower riparian countries is not fair."

Justifying the controversial inter-linking move, John Briscoe, water
resources advisor to the World Bank's Dhaka office, asserted that
there was no harm in transferring water from a surplus river to a
scarce one.

He was also contradicted by some of the experts.

Briscoe, who was earlier based in India, said instead of saying 'no,
no and no', Bangladesh should look for a 'win-win' situation.

Recalling his recent meeting with the Nepalese prime minister in
Kathmandu, Hafiz said, "Nepal is ready for such [regional] dialogue;
unfortunately this is not the same with the big neighbour [India]."

Referring to the last Joint Rivers Commission meeting held in New
Delhi, the minister said, "Water is a life and death issue for 135
million people in Bangladesh." But he regretted that India was not
even obliged to 'discuss' the issue.

He, however, hoped that next meeting of JRC, scheduled to be held in
Dhaka in January this year, would be held soon after the Indian
national election was over early next month.