Areas being identified to expand ties with Pakistan: BD envoy

ISLAMABAD: Bangladesh High Commissioner Muhammad Iqbal Hussain Khan says the golden period of Pakistan-Bangladesh ties has begun and “we are determined to take them to the platinum echelon”.

Talking to The News here on Sunday, the high commissioner said Bangladesh was set to receive Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar in Dhaka next month.

It would be the first high-level political visit from Islamabad to Dhaka ever since the incumbent administration has assumed office in Bangladesh last year.

It is likely that Senator Ishaq Dar would also call on Chief Adviser Dr. Muhammad Yunus besides holding several other high-level bilateral meetings. He will convey the message of goodwill from Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif to Dr Yunus. The Dhaka visit of Senator Ishaq Dar would go a long way towards strengthening the two-way relations further.

Muhammad Iqbal Hussain said the two brotherly countries were also fully geared to opening new vistas of their bilateral relations. It is heartening that trade between our two countries has already begun, and surely the relations would expand to several other spheres. “More areas are being identified while enormous capacity is in existence for increasing the same.”

To a query, the high commissioner said both the countries were determined to take their relations to new heights in all departments of life.

The high commissioner said Foreign Secretary of Pakistan Amna Baloch would be visiting Dhaka before the visit of DPM. Later, some important visit from Dhaka to Islamabad would also take place.

Ambassador Muhammad Iqbal Hussain expressed the hope that connectivity between Pakistan and Bangladesh had to be enhanced, as the people of the two countries were anxious to undertake visits to each other.

Ambassador Muhammad Iqbal Hussain Khan, who assumed the assignment in the last week of December, maintained that Islamabad and Dhaka’s convergence on a number of regional and international issues was a source of encouragement for the people of the two countries.