Golden period of Pakistan-Bangladesh ties begins, says Bangladesh envoy

• Ishaq Dar to visit Bangladesh next month: high commissioner
• Deputy PM likely to call on Chief Adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus.
• Both countries "determined" to take their relations to new heights.

ISLAMABAD: The golden age of Pakistan-Bangladesh relations has kicked off and "we are determined to take them to the platinum echelon", said Bangladesh High Commissioner Muhammad Iqbal Hussain Khan.

The high commissioner stated this in an interview with The News in Islamabad on Sunday. He said Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar would visit Bangladesh capital city in April.

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 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 Shehbaz Sharif to Dr Yunus. The Dhaka visit of the deputy PM would go a long way towards strengthening the two-way relations further.

Khan said the two brotherly countries were also fully geared to opening new vistas of their bilateral relations. It was heartening that trade between our two countries had already begun, and surely the relations would expand to several other spheres, he added. “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 Khan expressed the hope that connectivity between Pakistan and Bangladesh will 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.