Bangladesh on Thursday called on Pakistan to issue a formal apology for the genocide committed by its forces during the 1971 liberation war. It also asked the neighbouring nation to address several outstanding bilateral matters, aiming to build a more solid foundation for future relations, Prothom Alo reported.
Pakistan, in turn, expressed its willingness to hold discussions for settling those issues.
“Pakistan suggested continued discussion in future over these issues. The meeting that took place today was supposed to be a regular practice, but the last one was held in 2010,” Bangladesh foreign secretary Jasim Uddin said at the meeting.
Uddin shared details of the day’s diplomatic engagements, following a round of secretary-level talks held earlier that morning at the Padma state guest house.
He led the Bangladeshi delegation, while Pakistan’s foreign secretary Amna Baloch headed her side. Following the talks, Baloch paid courtesy visits to chief adviser professor Muhammad Yunus and Foreign Affairs Adviser Md Touhid Hossain. She had arrived in Dhaka the previous afternoon.
Last year, Yunus had called on Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to resolve the lingering issues stemming from the 1971 war “once and for all,” emphasizing that doing so would allow Dhaka to move forward in strengthening its ties with Islamabad.
However, he had refrained from explicitly calling for a formal apology over the mass killings and rapes committed by its army during the war—a demand previously set by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as a prerequisite for initiating the normalization of bilateral relations.
