KARACHI: Shaikh Mujibur Rahman, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, has said that meaningful negotiations between his country and Pakistan “can only be held on the basis of sovereign equality”. “Once negotiations start, there is no reason why we cannot settle all our problems, and eventually move towards the establishment of friendly relations to the benefit of all peoples of the Sub-continent,” he added.

Shaikh Mujibur Rahman stated this in written replies to questions submitted to him by two Pakistani journalists who were in Dacca recently. The journalists — Mazhar Ali Khan, Editor-in-Chief and Syed Najiullah, columnist of ‘Dawn’ — are the first Pakistani journalists to visit Bangladesh and interview that country’s Prime Minister. … The Bangladesh Prime Minister also said that the primary concept of the future relationship between Pakistan and Bangladesh “must be the acceptance of the realities that have emerged in the Sub-continent”. He said he believed that normalisation of relations was in the interest of all the peoples of the Sub-continent and added that the people of Bangladesh would welcome a settlement of all outstanding problems with Pakistan through negotiations. He did not see why objective conditions ... could not be created... .

[The Bangladesh PM said] … “By now the people in Pakistan should realise that there is very little about human problems that we do not know. It is not Bangladesh which is standing in the way of solving these problems. I have reason to believe that our neighbour, India, is also genuinely desirous of solving these problems in an equitable manner.”

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2022