More troops deployed along tense Bangladesh, Myanmar border

More troops deployed along tense Bangladesh, Myanmar border

DHAKA (AFP): Tensions remained high on the Bangladesh border with Myanmar on Thursday as both sides reinforced troops after a shootout over the construction of an illegal embankment, officials said.

Border guards, the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), reinforced troops after Myanmar brought in additional forces, a security source here said, adding Dhaka was maintaining a strict vigilance.

BDR officials were quoted by the local media as saying they would retaliate if Myanmar moved to try to resume work on the dam.

The Daily Star newspaper said border guards armed with "heavy equipment" had been moved to the southeastern border, but the report could not be confirmed.

The two sides agreed to a ceasefire until Sunday, after they exchanged fire near the frontier post of Teknaf on Monday, officials said. Myanmar also agreed to suspend work on the dam for seven days.

Teknaf is opposite the Tutardip area of western Myanmar across the narrow Naaf river that divides the two countries.

The foreign ministry is awaiting a reply from Yangon that it would stop construction of the dam and Foreign Secretary Shafi Sami was expected to brief the press during a regular weekly briefing later Thursday.

Some 100 Myanmar laborers, backed by armed Nasaka frontier troops, have completed a two-mile stretch of a six-mile, eight- foot high dike, earlier reports said.

Bangladesh said it had not been told about the construction adding it violated a 1966 border river agreement between the two countries.

Border skirmishes between the two neighbors are not uncommon as Myanmar rebels from the separatist Rohingya Solidarity Organization regularly seek refuge in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh accuses Yangon of planting hundreds of landmines along the border, defying international law, under the pretext of curbing insurgency and smuggling. At least three people have been killed in mine blasts.