Myanmar for Asian highway through I

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Subject: Myanmar for Asian highway through India

Myanmar for Asian highway through India

IANS
Dhaka

The Hindustan Times, Lucknow Edition (12/8/97).

Myanmar wants the proposed Asian highway linking South and Southeast
Asia to enter its territory from north-eastern India and not from
Bangladesh. an official of the UN Economic and Social Commission for
Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) said.

Myanmar wants the highway to enter it at Tamu from Imphal in India and
not from Teknaf, the tip of south-eastern Bangladesh, according to Dr M
Rahmatullah, Director.  Transportation, Communication and Tourism, at
Bangkok-based ESCAP which is co-ordinating the transportation project.

Dr Rahmatullah. who was in Dhaka to attend a seminar. said that even the
Bangladesh government had accepted the Imphal-Tamu route. Myanmar does
not favour the Teknaf route because it is not economically profitable.
The mid-stream of the Naf river at Teknaf is the boundary between
Bangladesh and Myanmar, with Arakan on the other side.

While Bangladesh has a good road to Teknaf, there is no road of the
needed quality linking Yangon to Teknaf. Each country, through which the
highway would run, has to build its part of the road itself.

India and Myanmar agree that the highway should pass through Imphal in
India on to Tamu in Myanmar Dr Rahmatullah said.

An international conference which would try to solve problems linked
with the Bangladesh section of the highway would be held in Dhaka in
December where Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar
would he represented.

According to the ESCAP official, the Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand section
of the Asian highway had already been built. A bridge linking Thailand
and Myanmar would open to traffic on August 15.  Thailand is helping
build a part of the highway in eastern Myanmar while India is assisting
on a section in western Myanmar.

The Bangladesh government has not so far proposed any changes in routing
the Asian highway from Tamabil in northeastern Sylhet in Bangladesh, he
added. The Bangladesh government had discussed changes in the highway
route with the ESCAP in May this year.

Although Dr Rahmatullah did not say what was discussed then, there are
indications that the Bangladesh government would like the Asian highway
to be routed through its Sylhet-Austragram section. In case that happen,
observers say, it would be a defeat for the former BNP government of
Bangladesh because it had opposed the Sythet-Austragram route.

Quoting from a letter sent by the BNP government to the ESCAP two years
ago, Dr Rahmatullah said that Dhaka had then proposed routing the
highway through Sylhet-Tamabil in Bangladesh to move on to Imphal in
India and Tamu in Myanmar, although it would mean a detour of an extra
360 kilometres.