India’s prime minister met with the head of Bangladesh’s interim government on the sidelines of a regional summit in Bangkok on Friday, the Bangladesh government’s press office said, their first meeting since the ouster of Bangladeshi premier Sheikh Hasina last year.

Relations between the South Asian neighbours, which were robust under Hasina, have deteriorated since she fled the country in August in the face of massive student-led protests and sought shelter in India.

Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who took over as the chief adviser of an interim government in Dhaka after Hasina’s exit, met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the fringes of the BIMSTEC summit in Bangkok, the press office said.

BIMSTEC, or the Bay of Bengal initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, also includes Thailand, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan.

On Friday, Yunus posted a picture on social media showing him shaking hands with Modi, and his press secretary Shafiqul Alam later said the “meeting was constructive, productive, and fruitful”.

Yunus shared a photograph of the two men smiling as he handed Modi a framed picture of themselves a decade ago — when the Indian leader in 2015 honoured the micro-finance pioneer with a gold medal for this work supporting the poorest of society.

There was no immediate statement from New Delhi.

Yunus, according to his press secretary, also raised with Modi the issue of Dhaka’s long-running complaint at what it says are Hasina’s incendiary remarks from exile.

Dhaka has requested that India allow Hasina’s extradition to face charges of crimes against humanity for the killing of hundreds of protesters during the unrest that toppled her government.

Public opinion in Bangladesh turned against India, in part, for its decision to provide sanctuary to Hasina. New Delhi has not responded to Dhaka’s request to send her home for trial.

Yunus also raised concerns of border violence along the porous frontier with India, as well as issues of the shared river waters that flow from India, as the Ganges and the Brahmaputra wind towards the sea.

India has repeatedly urged Bangladesh to protect its minority Hindus, saying they were being targeted in the Muslim-majority country since Yunus took charge. Dhaka says the violence has been exaggerated and is not a communal issue.

“The hope would be that this meeting would start the process of rebuilding some engagement,” said Harsh Pant, foreign policy head at the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think-tank.

“I think at this point, simply stabilising the relationship perhaps should be the priority.”

Modi and Yunus had dinner on Thursday night — sitting next to each other alongside other leaders from the BIMSTEC bloc in Bangkok — but the bilateral sit-down on Friday was the first since relations frayed between the neighbouring nations.

With longstanding cultural and business ties, the two nations share a 4,000 km (2,500 mile) border.