Modi urges Yunus to avoid rhetoric that mars ties

BANGKOK/NEW DELHI: India’s prime minister urged Bangladesh’s interim leader to avoid rhetoric that marred bilateral relations during their first meeting on Friday since the ouster of Bangladeshi premier Sheikh Hasina, India’s foreign ministry said.

Relations between the South Asian neighbours, which were robust under Hasina, have deteriorated since she fled the country last August, in the face of massive student-led protests, and sought shelter in India.

Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who took over as the chief adviser of an interim government in Dhaka after Hasina’s exit, met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday on the fringes of the BIMSTEC summit in Bangkok.

“Prime Minister (Modi) urged [...] that any rhetoric that vitiates the environment is best avoided,” India’s foreign secretary Vikram Misri told reporters.

“(Modi) reiterated India’s support for a democratic, stable, peaceful, progressive and inclusive Bangladesh,” Misri said, adding that the Indian leader had also stressed New Delhi’s desire for “a positive and constructive relationship with Bangladesh based on a spirit of pragmatism”.

Bangladesh described the 40-minute exchange between the two leaders as “candid, productive, and constructive”.

Yunus told Modi that Bangladesh wanted to work with him to set the relationship on the right track for the benefit of both countries, Yunus’s press office said in a statement. The two leaders discussed Bangladesh’s request seeking Hasina’s extradition, Misri said, without elaborating further.

“She has consistently made false and inflammatory accusations against the interim government of Bangladesh,” the statement from Bangladesh quoted Yunus as saying.

Yunus requested New Delhi take appropriate measures to restrain Hasina from making incendiary remarks while she remained in India, said the statement, adding that Modi said India did not support any particular party in Bangladesh.

India’s Misri said Modi had asked Yunus to help maintain border security and stability, and expressed his hope that Bangladesh would thoroughly investigate all cases of “atrocities” committed against people from minority groups, including Hindus.