Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar will arrives Dahak on Friday morning as a Special Envoy of the President of Pakistan to invite Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to attend the D-8 summit to be held in Islamabad on November 22.
This would be the first highest-level visit by any Pakistani official since the Awami League-led grand alliance came to power about four years ago.
According to Foreign Ministry officials, Hina during his 12-hour visit, will call on the Prime Minister and extended an invitation to attend the Summit of the Developing-8, an organization of eight Muslim countries namely Bangladesh, Iran, Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan and.
She will also have a meeting with her Bangladesh counterpart Dipu Moni, officials said
The Pakistan Foreign Minister was originally scheduled to ccme Dhaka on October 25, but it was postponed.
Highly placed sources told The Daily Star that the possibility of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Pakistan is very thin as there is no schedule of the prime minister’s visit to Pakistan in the tentative programme list of the foreign ministry.
Diplomatic sources said Sheikh Hasina’s attendance is important since she played an important role in forming the D-8 grouping, and she led it for two years (1999-2000).
Foreign Ministry sources said in case the Hasina is not visiting Pakistan, she may send Foreign Minister Dipu Moni to attend the summit. Representatives of any head of state or government can attend it.
Dhaka hosted D-8 Summit on March 1-2, 1999. As the D-8 chair rotates, it is now the turn of Islamabad to host the Summit.
Dhaka-Islamabad bilateral engagement in the last four years has been limited to the visits of Bangladesh’s education and commerce ministers to Islamabad and the foreign secretary-level official consultation in November, 2010.
Source: The Daily Star
