Pranab Mukherjee to visit Bangladesh Feb 19

New Delhi, Feb 18: External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee will travel to Dhaka tomorrow on a day-long visit to invite the Bangladesh leadership to attend the 14th SAARC Summit in New Delhi on April 3-4.

Keeping with the convention to personally invite the leaders of SAARC countries to attend the Summit of the grouping, the External Affairs Minister has so far visited all the other countries of SAARC.

Since Bangladesh is at present under a caretaker government in view of the upcoming general elections there, the country's President is likely to attend the Summit.

Mr Mukherjee will meet the head of the caretaker government as well as the leaders of two major political parties including Begum Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina.

Bangladesh which witnessed political turmoil in the run up to the elections, was placed under a caretaker government after emergency was imposed on January 11 and elections postponed which were scheduled to be held on January 22.

Mr Mukherjee will return the same evening for talks with his Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri the next day.

India had last month hoped that the people of Bangladesh would be allowed to exercise their democratic right to choose their own government in a free and fair process through credible elections in which all major political parties are in a position to participate.

UNI

Related Stories

>