Bangladesh’s interim government will ‘work with’ India in order to resolve the issues over the long-pending Teesta water-sharing treaty, says Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus.

The issue has been left hanging for an extended period, which is not good for either country, he told Indian news organisation PTI in an interview.

Yunus spoke with PTI from his official residence in Dhaka. Many Indian outlets published reports based on the interview on Friday.

The chief advisor urged the issue to be resolved according to international norms.

“By sitting over this issue [water sharing], it is not serving any purpose. If I know how much water I will get, even if I am not happy and sign it, it would be better. This issue has to be resolved,” he said.

Asked whether the interim government would push India on the issue, he said:

“Push is a big word; I am not saying it. We will pursue it. But we have to sit together and resolve it,” he told PTI.

The much-anticipated agreement on the Teesta water was supposed to happen during the visit of then Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh to Dhaka in September 2011. In the lead-up to that visit, the water resource ministers of both countries had agreed on a sharing deal.

However, the treaty was stalled due to opposition from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. This deadlock has not been resolved even after 13 years.

Although there were hopes for the Teesta agreement after Narendra Modi's BJP government came to power, Mamata's stance did not change.

This year, following a trip to India by then prime minister Sheikh Hasina, the premiers of the two countries made a statement saying that India had decided to begin technical discussions of renewing the 1996 Ganges water-sharing treaty. The statement added that a technical team from India would also be dispatched to Bangladesh to discuss the conservation and management of the Teesta River.

“This is not a new issue but a very old issue. We have spoken on this issue on several occasions. The discussions began during the period of Pakistan's rule. While we all wanted this treaty to be finalised, even the Indian government was ready for it. However, the state government of West Bengal was not ready for it. We need to resolve it,” Yunus told PTI.

“We have to resolve this issue according to international norms. The lower riparian countries have certain rights, and we want those rights,” he said.

Yunus’s remarks come after Syeda Rizwana Hasan, the interim government advisor on water resources, told PTI that Dhaka would push to restart dialogue with Delhi on the treaty.

Yunus also spoke about the recent flooding in Bangladesh and reports from Dhaka blaming India for the floods. Until a treaty is signed on the matter, he urges a humanitarian approach.

“When the High Commissioner [of India] came to meet me, I said that we can work on better management to see how the situation can be controlled during the floods. For such coordination between two countries, we don’t need any treaty."

"We can work on this together on humanitarian grounds and resolve this, as this will ease the suffering of the masses. Such humanitarian steps would really help,” he said.

The chief advisor also condemned the issue of border killings between the two countries, describing the killings of Bangladeshi citizens by Indian border forces as ‘callousness’.

“Killing someone is not a solution, as there are legal ways to deal with this. There has to be a ground mechanism and legal procedure to handle it. This is a one-sided thing. No one is crossing the border to capture your country; those who are being killed by shooting are just couriers. This is callousness. This has to stop,” he said.