Bangladesh Navy chief in India on 3-day visit

New Delhi Aug 28 (IANS) Bangladesh Navy chief Admiral Nizamuddin Ahmed arrived in India on Monday on a three-day visit and met Defence Minister Arun Jaitley and Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba.

The visit is aimed at consolidating bilateral naval relations between India and Bangladesh and to explore new avenues for naval cooperation Indian Navy said in a statement. He will be in India till August 30. Admiral Ahmed is also scheduled to visit Visakhapatnam where the Eastern Naval Command is headquartered. He will be visiting various naval establishments including INS Kalinga INS Karna and INS Satavahana. Naval cooperation between India and Bangladesh has been traditionally strong encompassing a wide span which includes operational interactions through training port calls passage exercises along with Capability Building and Capacity Augmentation initiatives Bangladesh Navy is also the present Chair of the Indian Ocean Symposium (IONS) which is a Multilateral Maritime Cooperation platform launched by the Indian Navy. It is also scheduled to conduct an International Multilateral Maritime Search and Rescue Exercise titled IMMSAREX in November 2017 which is being held under the IONS construct. --IANS ao/him/vm