Muhammad Yunus, Shehbaz Sharif to hold talks on UNGA sidelines in US

Dhaka, Sep 18 (IANS) Bangladesh interim government’s Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus is set to meet Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during his visit to New York on September 22, according to local media reports.

Yunus and Sharif will be in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session.

The meeting comes amid growing closeness between Dhaka and Islamabad since the ouster of the democratically elected Awami League government led by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Addressing a press conference at the Foreign Service Academy in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s Foreign Affairs Advisor Touhid Hossain announced that Yunus will address the session on September 26.

He added that Yunus is also slated to hold meetings with the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the President of Finland, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, the UN Secretary-General, and the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Myanmar on the sidelines of the UNGA session, local media reported on Thursday.

During his visit, the Chief Advisor will be accompanied by four senior leaders from three major political parties — Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), radical Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, and National Citizens Party (NCP), reports the country’s leading Bengali daily, Jugantor.

Relations between Dhaka and Islamabad remained strained during the 15-year rule of the former Awami League government due to issues such as the war crimes trials in Bangladesh and broader regional politics.

Key issues in Bangladesh-Pakistan relations have always included Pakistan’s role in the 1971 genocide during the Liberation War, the return of stranded assets, and compensation.

However, things have changed drastically since the formation of the interim government led by Yunus in August 2024.

Last month, Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar made a two-day official visit to Dhaka, marking the first state-level visit of any Pakistani official to Bangladesh in 13 years.

During this meeting, Dar claimed that the long-standing 1971 genocide issue had been resolved twice in the past, a claim which was quickly denied by Dhaka.

Following a meeting with Foreign Affairs Advisor Hossain, Dar asserted that three unresolved matters between Islamabad and Dhaka, including the long-standing demand for an apology over the 1971 genocide, have been resolved twice in the past, according to the leading Bangladeshi media outlet, Prothom Alo.

However, rejecting the claims made by the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Hossain told reporters, “I definitely do not agree. If we had agreed, the problem would have been resolved.”

Last year, Yunus met Pakistani PM Sharif on the sidelines of the UNGA, where both leaders agreed to strengthen bilateral ties.

The two nations, historically estranged since the brutal 1971 Liberation War — wherein Pakistani forces massacred millions of people and reportedly raped hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi women — are now demonstrating signs of rapprochement.

–IANS

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