Ministerial-level delegation to visit Pakistan for first time in nine years
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Tribune Desk
Publish : 17 Dec 2021, 11:21 AMUpdate : 17 Dec 2021, 11:25 AM
Bangladesh is sending a ministerial-level delegation to Pakistan for the first time in nine years.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam and Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen will fly out to Islamabad to join a special session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on the situation in Afghanistan.
Speaking with online newspaper Bangla Tribune, Foreign Secretary Momen said that he will join the senior officials’ meeting on Saturday while State Minister Shahriar will attend the ministerial-level meeting the next day.
Asked whether there would be bilateral talks with Pakistan on the sidelines of the OIC session, the top Bangladeshi diplomat said, “No, nothing like that is on the cards.”
In 2012, Gowher Rizvi, prime minister's adviser on international relations, went to Pakistan to attend a D8 Summit.
Before that, in 2010, Mijarul Quayes, then foreign secretary, went to Pakistan to attend the fifth bilateral foreign secretary-level meeting.
Bangladesh — formerly East Pakistan — gained independence after the nine-month-long Liberation War in 1971. Bilateral relations between the two South Asian countries have remained cold since Pakistani forces based in West Pakistan launched a planned military operation to restrain the Bengali nationalist movement.
In a rare incident, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan made a phone call to his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina in July 2020, as Dhaka had declared that it would pursue a foreign policy of “friendship to all and malice to none”.
Both Dhaka and Islamabad are in agreement that they need to hold long-pending foreign office consultations which were last held in 2010, a foreign ministry statement said in January.
Ministerial-level delegation to visit Pakistan for first time in nine years
Bangladesh is sending a ministerial-level delegation to Pakistan for the first time in nine years.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam and Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen will fly out to Islamabad to join a special session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on the situation in Afghanistan.
Speaking with online newspaper Bangla Tribune, Foreign Secretary Momen said that he will join the senior officials’ meeting on Saturday while State Minister Shahriar will attend the ministerial-level meeting the next day.
Asked whether there would be bilateral talks with Pakistan on the sidelines of the OIC session, the top Bangladeshi diplomat said, “No, nothing like that is on the cards.”
In 2012, Gowher Rizvi, prime minister's adviser on international relations, went to Pakistan to attend a D8 Summit.
Before that, in 2010, Mijarul Quayes, then foreign secretary, went to Pakistan to attend the fifth bilateral foreign secretary-level meeting.
Bangladesh — formerly East Pakistan — gained independence after the nine-month-long Liberation War in 1971. Bilateral relations between the two South Asian countries have remained cold since Pakistani forces based in West Pakistan launched a planned military operation to restrain the Bengali nationalist movement.
In a rare incident, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan made a phone call to his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina in July 2020, as Dhaka had declared that it would pursue a foreign policy of “friendship to all and malice to none”.
Both Dhaka and Islamabad are in agreement that they need to hold long-pending foreign office consultations which were last held in 2010, a foreign ministry statement said in January.
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