Bangladesh foreign minister Khalilur Rahman is scheduled to visit India on Tuesday as part of a bilateral effort to reset ties that turned sour in mid-2024 after India provided refuge to former Bangladeshi Premier Sheikh Hasina when she was forced to flee her country in the face of protests.
He will be the first minister of the newly elected government of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to visit India after Prime Minister Tarique Rahman assumed office in February following the parliamentary elections in the country.
Ahead of this visit, India’s high commissioner in Dhaka, Pranay Verma, met Prime Minister Rahman on Monday. “During the meeting, bilateral issues of mutual interest, including trade, connectivity, technology, energy, socio-economic development, women’s empowerment and cultural cooperation, were discussed,” the Bangladesh foreign ministry said on X.
According to a post from the Indian high commission in Dhaka, they discussed bilateral engagement with a focus on people-centric cooperation in multiple domains aligned with the national development priorities of the two countries. “High Commissioner conveyed India’s intent to work together with the Government and people of Bangladesh by adopting a positive, constructive and forward-looking approach and based on mutual interest and mutual benefit.”
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Bangladesh’s foreign affairs adviser Humayun Kabir was quoted by the Dhaka Tribune as saying that the government was aiming to reset relations with India, moving away from the trajectory followed during Hasina’s tenure. “The kind of relations that existed during Sheikh Hasina’s tenure will no longer continue. That chapter is over.” There was no official word from India on the visit till late Monday evening.
According to Kabir, the meeting focused on strengthening bilateral cooperation and the import of diesel through pipelines from India. This has assumed urgency in the wake of the ongoing conflict in West Asia. Soon after the war began, the external affairs ministry confirmed that the Bangladesh government had sent in a request for
diesel supply.