Bangladesh foreign minister Khalilur Rahman is likely to pay his maiden official visit to India on April 7 and hold bilateral talks with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar in New Delhi.
Khalilur’s visit would take place at the invitation of Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar amid the pressing issues of energy crisis and Dhaka’s repeated requests for the extradition of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina and others facing cases for atrocities committed during the July uprising in 2024 and sheltered there.
Besides, there is the issue of renewal of the 30-year Ganges Treaty that will expire in December this year.
The trip will be the first bilateral visit to New Delhi after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led government took over following the party’s landslide victory in the February 12 general elections, foreign ministry officials confirmed without further details as Khalilur was on a visit to the United States.
Khalilur, who served as National Security Adviser in the immediate past interim government and is a surprise inclusion in Tarique Rahamn’s cabinet, is scheduled to join the 9th Indian Ocean Conference scheduled for April 10-12 in Mauritius, an official said.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi earlier in a positive gesture invited prime minister Tarique Rahman and his family at a mutually convenient time on his assumption of office on February 17.
Dhaka has, meanwhile, requested New Delhi for additional fuel through the existing pipeline for diesel supply to address possible crisis amid the ongoing conflict across the Gulf states since United States and Israel’s joint attack on Iran on February 28 and the retaliatory strikes from Tehran on Israel and the US bases in Gulf Arab states.
About the matter, state minister for foreign affairs Shama Obaed Islam on March 24 told reporters that Dhaka had got a green signal from New Delhi for additional fuel supply.
However, Bangladesh has not yet got consular access to Iquilab Mancha convener Osman Hadi murder suspects — Faisal Karim Masud and his associate Alamgir Hossain — arrested in West Bengal of India early March even after it made the request three weeks back, according to officials.
Bangladesh’s foreign minister Khalilur Rahman is set to visit New Delhi and hold meetings with external affairs minister S Jaishankar on April7, before travelling to Mauritius and likely to Pakistan, according to a report published in ThePrint, a Delhi-based digital news platform, on March 27.
Ties between India and Bangladesh cratered during the tenure of the interim government led by chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus between August 2024 and February 2026, the report said.
The visit comes as New Delhi and Dhaka continue to work on revitalising ties, following tensions over the past 18 months of the interim government.
Yunus and his foreign adviser Touhid Hossain did not visit India during the period.
Khalilur’s visit is set to build on a visit by Bangladesh’s Director General of Forces Intelligence chief Major General Mohammad Kaisar Rashid Chowdhury to New Delhi earlier this month when he met with Parag Jain, chief of the Research and Analysis Wing, as well as his Indian counterpart Lieutenant General RS Raman, ThePrint reported.
Khalilur, being the National Security Adviser in the Professor Yunus-led interim government, had travelled to India for the Colombo Security Conclave at the end of the past year when he had a meeting with Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval.
