Pakistan summons Bangladesh High Commissioner

Pakistan has summoned Bangladesh High Commissioner in Islamabad Tarik Ahsan following Dhaka’s protest over a video post on Facebook which Dhaka termed the distortion of history.

He was summoned by the Director General (South Asia & SAARC) to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday, the Pakistan foreign ministry said on its website, reports bdnews24.com.

This was to register “our protest on the use of undiplomatic language in a Note Verbale, on an incident of obscure origin”.

“The High Commissioner was conveyed that sharing of a video by a third party cannot be attributed to Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka.”

Earlier, Bangladesh foreign ministry summoned Pakistan High Commissioner on Oct 31 and sought "formal note of apology" from Islamabad over a social media post by the High Commission of Pakistan, which Dhaka has described as "ill-motivated and misleading."

The Pakistan High Commission shared a Facebook video from a page ‘Pakistan Affairs’ in which it was claimed that ‘Ziaur Rahman, not Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, announced Bangladesh’s independence’.

After Bangladesh’s protest, the High Commission removed the video.

The Pakistan envoy apologised, saying the incident had been ‘unintentional’ and that they had not ‘understood the situation’, Secretary (Bilateral and Consular) Kamrul Ahsan of the foreign ministry said on Oct 31 after the summoning.

Pakistan in its statement, however, said they have been pursuing “a policy of maintaining friendly and cordial ties with Bangladesh.”

It once again expressed its desire to move forward by the Tripartite Agreement of 1974 wherein, Pakistan said, “the Prime Minister of Bangladesh desired that the people of Bangladesh should ‘forget the past and make a fresh start’”.

Islamabad has been using this argument for long particularly while protesting the war crimes trial in Bangladesh in which the government is trying those Bangladeshis who collaborated with Pakistan army in 1971 genocide.

The foreign ministry, however, repeatedly countered that argument as “misleading, limited and partial interpretation” of the underlying premise of the Tripartite Agreement of April 1974.

“The essential spirit of the Agreement was to create an environment of good neighbourliness and peaceful co-existence.

“The agreement never implied that the masterminds and perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide would continue to enjoy impunity and eschew the course of justice,” Dhaka in several protest notes said.