Pakistan’s High Commissioner, Imran Haider, met the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament and chief of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, Dr. Shafiqur Rahman. The meeting took place Thursday (June 18) at 11:30 a.m. at the opposition leader’s office in the Parliament Building.
Apart from the Pakistani high commissioner, his political adviser, Kamran Dhangal, was present at the meeting. The opposition leader’s foreign affairs adviser, barrister Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem Arman, and foreign affairs committee member Ali Ahmad Mabroor also took part.
On the meeting, the Pakistani high commissioner said the two sides wanted to advance bilateral relations with Bangladesh through a forward-looking approach.
He said relations between Bangladesh and Pakistan had been moving in a positive direction recently. The volume of trade between the two countries had increased, and several visits by military and civilian officials had taken place. A delegation of Bangladeshi academics had recently visited Pakistan and expressed satisfaction with the country’s advanced education infrastructure, he said.
The opposition leader was also briefed on the success of an education fair held in Dhaka last month. The high commissioner said Pakistan would provide scholarships to 500 Bangladeshi students in phases over the next five years, of whom 74 had already traveled to Pakistan. Work was under way to expand academic exchange between universities in the two countries, and he expressed hope that the ongoing “knowledge corridor” project would be further consolidated in the coming days.
The Pakistani high commissioner called for forming a parliamentary group and strengthening ties between the two countries at the parliamentary level.
At one point in the talks, the opposition leader thanked the Pakistani government, through the high commissioner, for Pakistan’s historic role in the signing of a peace agreement between the United States and Iran.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report