Pakistan's deputy prime minister
Ishaq Dar arrives in Dhaka, what he will do during his visit
Pakistan's deputy prime minister Ishaq Dar arrived in Dhaka on Saturday afternoon for a two-day official visit. He landed at around 2:00pm on a special flight.
He was received by Bangladesh’s foreign secretary Asad Alam Siam at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. A senior official at the foreign ministry confirmed the information to Prothom Alo.
Six agreements and memoranda of understanding (MoUs) between the two countries are expected to be finalised and signed.
Pakistan's deputy prime minister and foreign minister will hold important meetings with several leaders, including the chief advisor of Bangladesh's interim government, professor Muhammad Yunus, and the foreign adviser Md Touhid Hossain.
Following the political changes in Bangladesh after August, Ishaq Dar has become the third member of the Pakistani cabinet to visit Dhaka. In July, Pakistan's interior minister Mohsin Naqvi visited Dhaka, and just last Wednesday, pakistan's commerce minister Jam Kamal Khan arrived in the city.
Officials at the foreign ministry told this correspondent that on the second day of his visit—tomorrow, Sunday— Ishaq Dar will hold both one-on-one and delegation-level meetings with foreign adviser Md Touhid Hossain in the morning. Following the nearly two-hour-long meeting, six agreements and memoranda of understanding (MoUs) between the two countries are expected to be finalised and signed.
Among the finalised agreements is one that will abolish visa requirements for holders of official and diplomatic passports from both countries. The finalised MoUs include: the formation of a bilateral trade Joint Working Group, cultural exchange programmes, cooperation between the two countries’ foreign service academies, collaboration between the national news agencies, and a partnership between Bangladesh's Institute of International and Strategic Studies and Pakistan’s Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI).
According to diplomatic sources, during his two-day visit, Ishaq Dar will also engage in discussions with various political leaders in Bangladesh. As part of this, he is scheduled to visit BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia at her residence in Gulshan. In addition, he is also expected to meet with senior leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami.