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Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, who is also the foreign minister of the country, would visit Bangladesh in April this year at the invitation of Bangladesh’s Foreign Adviser Touhid Hossain.
Local news portals said Pakistan foreign ministry’s additional secretary (Asia Pacific) Imran Ahmed Siddiqui arrived in Dhaka as part of preparation for their foreign minister’s upcoming Dhaka visit.
According to BSS, Imran Ahmed Siddiqui held a meeting with Bangladesh’s foreign secretary Md. Jashim Uddin at the foreign ministry in Dhaka on Wednesday.
Siddiqui carried a letter from Pakistan’s foreign minister addressed to Bangladesh's foreign affairs adviser and handed it over to the Foreign Secretary, said a press release.
They also discussed the importance of holding the foreign secretary-level consultations between Bangladesh and Pakistan, the last meeting of which was held in 2010, and the meeting of the Joint Economic Commission, the last meeting of which was held in 2005.
During the meeting, both sides recalled the substantive discussion between Bangladesh's Chief Adviser and Pakistan's Prime Minister during their meetings in Cairo on the sidelines of the D-8 Summit in December 2024 and in New York in September 2024 on the sidelines of the 79th UNGA.
They also recalled the meeting between Bangladesh's Foreign Adviser and Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting in Apia, Samoa in October 2024.
The discussion also covered the issue of strengthening cooperation to enhance trade and reduce the trade gap.
Both sides expressed satisfaction over the recent visits of several trade delegations from Pakistan to Bangladesh and emphasized the importance of visits by the product-specific trade delegations from Bangladesh to Pakistan.
Cooperation in the sectors of tourism, people-to-people contacts, cultural exchanges, the issue of forcibly displaced Rohingyas and cooperation in the international forum were also discussed.
The importance of strengthened regional and multilateral cooperation through SAARC, OIC, and D-8 was also highlighted.
Siddiqui was accompanied by Pakistan High Commissioner to Bangladesh Syed Ahmed Maroof.