February 11, 2025
DHAKA – Bangladesh Foreign Adviser Touhid Hossain and Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar may meet in Oman, on the sidelines of the Indian Ocean Conference slated for February 16-17.
This would be the second foreign minister-level meeting between the two. The first one was held in New York on the sidelines of UN General Assembly in September last year.
The New Delhi-based think tank, India Foundation, is organising the Indian Ocean Conference that has emerged as the flagship consultative forum for countries in the region over regional affairs.
The meeting between Touhid and Jaishankar in Oman could help ease the Indo-Bangla relations that remained strained since deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India on August 5 amid a mass uprising, said diplomatic sources.
“The meeting will be an occasion to ease the relations,” a diplomatic source in Dhaka told The Daily Star last night.
After the political changeover in Bangladesh, India on several occasions complained of repression against minorities, especially the Hindus. Bangladesh has repeatedly said the accusations were inflated, and majority of the attacks were political in nature, not religious.
Dhaka has complained of misinformation about Bangladesh in the Indian media and protested the statements of Hasina via social media, saying that those statements were inciting instability in Bangladesh.
There was also tension over India installing border fences within the 150 yards of the international borders at several places along the Bangladesh-India border.
After the demolition of Bangabandhu Memorial Museum in Dhanmondi 32, Bangladesh foreign ministry summoned Pawan Badhe, the Indian deputy high commissioner in Dhaka, to lodge a strong protest against Hasina’s statements.
On February 7, Indian Ministry of External Affairs also summoned Bangladesh’s Deputy High Commissioner Nural Islam.
Dhaka on February 9 termed India’s condemnation of the incidents in Dhaka “unwarranted and unexpected”.
“In the meeting in Oman, both the leaders may share their concerns and try to normalise the relationship,” said a foreign ministry official.