Foreign minister Khalilur Rahman on Tuesday reaffirmed Bangladesh’s unwavering commitment to revitalising the SAARC process, expressing readiness to take proactive initiatives to strengthen regional cooperation in South Asia.

The assurance came when SAARC secretary general Md Golam Sarwar called on the foreign minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Dhaka, said a foreign ministry’s press release.

During the meeting, the foreign minister reiterated Bangladesh’s steadfast adherence to the principles enshrined in the SAARC Charter, including sovereign equality, territorial integrity, political independence, non-interference in internal affairs and mutual benefit of the peoples of member states.

He recalled that the concept of regional cooperation in South Asia was first proposed by Bangladesh in the early 1980s by the late president Ziaur Rahman with a vision to promote people’s welfare, improve quality of life and strengthen collective self-reliance in the region.

As one of the founding members of SAARC and host of the first SAARC summit in December 1985—followed by summits in 1993 and 2005—Bangladesh acknowledges the organisation’s valuable role in fostering common regional values and advancing cooperation in trade, investment, connectivity, poverty alleviation, power, climate change, food security, education, public health, culture and people-to-people contacts, the minister said.