Source: The Express Tribune.
When Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar visited Dhaka in November to invite Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid to attend the D-8 summit in Islamabad, a demand was put forward that Pakistan apologise over “crimes committed by the state in 1971.”
Khar responded with the standard reply: Bangladesh should move on, build cordial relationships and “bury the past”. Days later, Bangladesh announced Wajid would not attend the summit.
This renewed insistence on an apology may, on the surface, seem like nothing but political gesturing by Bangladesh’s ruling party, the Awami League. However, from government to bureaucracy to civil society, most in Bangladesh feel it is time Pakistan officially apologises to Bangladesh.
This demand at the official level is a foreign policy continuation since the Awami League-led government came to power in 2009. It was raised in 2009, during foreign minister Dipu Moni’s meeting with the Pakistan envoy Alamgir Bashar Khan Babar.
Categories: Asia, Bangladesh, Politics