New Delhi, India: The External Affairs Minister of India, S Jaishankar, met with the Bhutanese National Assembly Speaker, Wangchuk Namgyel, in Delhi. The officials, at the meeting, discussed ways to strengthen the economic cooperation and concerns of the youth of both nations. The Indian official met with the 13-member delegation of Namgyel while praising the kind of relations the two nations bear with each other.
The Indian EAM, Jaishankar, took to Twitter to express his pleasure in meeting the officials from Bhutan. Jaishankar further stated that the officials conducted discussions on diverse and unique friendship, especially ongoing reform, stronger economic cooperation and the concerns of youth.”
Further, the tweet said that the delegation from Bhutan could themselves take a look at the developments that India has made in the last eight years. The bilateral relations between India and Bhutan have been basically founded upon the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation that was signed in 1949. The treaty envisaged peace between the nation and non-interference in each other’s internal matters. Notably, the treaty was revised in 2007.
While the diplomatic relations between India and Bhutan were established in 1968, marked by the establishment of a special office of India in Thimphu. India and Bhutan continue the diplomatic mechanisms in fields such as security, border management, trade, transit, economic, hydro-power, development cooperation, water resources etc.
India and Bhutan share a 699 km long border in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal and Sikkim states of India. The trade between the two is administered according to the India-Bhutan Trade and Transit Agreement, 1972.
India is Bhutan’s largest trading partner, supporting the construction of three Hydroelectric Projects in Bhutan, namely, Chukha HEP, Tala HEP and Kurichhu HEP.
