India\u2019s top career diplomat was in Bangladesh on Monday to defuse tensions between the two neighbours arising from the August overthrow of autocratic ex-premier Sheikh Hasina in a student-led revolution. Hasina\u2019s iron-fisted rule was strongly backed by India and the 77-year-old remains in New Delhi where she took refuge after her ouster, despite Bangladesh announ\u00adcing it would seek her extradition. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, leader of an interim government tasked with implementing democratic reforms, has condemned acts of \u201cIndian aggression\u201d that he alleged were intended to destabilise his administration. Vikram Misri, the secretary of India\u2019s foreign ministry, arrived in Dhaka on Monday for the first in-person meeting between top officials of both countries since Hasina\u2019s ouster. Bangladesh\u2019s interim leader Muhammad Yunus, who met Misri on Monday, has said the reports were exaggerated. Yunus \u201casked India to help clear the \u2018clouds\u2019 that have cast a shadow over the relationship between the two neighbours in recent times,\u201d according to a statement from his office. \u201cIndia desires a positive, constructive, and mutually beneficial relationship with Bangladesh,\u201d Misri was quoted as saying in a transcript published by the Indian foreign ministry after the meeting. \u201cThere is no reason why this mutually beneficial cooperation should not continue to deliver in the interest of both our peoples.\u201d Misri said he discussed \u201csome regrettable incidents of attacks on cultural, religious, and diplomatic properties\u201d, adding that India expected a constructive approach on these issues from Bangladesh. He also met his Bangladeshi counterpart, Mohammad Jashim Uddin. Bangladesh has denied reports of attacks, asked India to stop sheltering Hasina and demanded her extradition. India, for its part, has accused Muslim-majority Bangladesh of failing to adequately protect its minority Hindu community from reprisal attacks after Hasina\u2019s toppling. Yunus\u2019s administration has rep\u00adeatedly acknowledged and condem\u00adned attacks on Hindus, but also insists that in many cases they were motivated by politics rather than religion. Yunus has accused India of exaggerating the scale of the violence and running a \u201cpropaganda campaign\u201d against his government. Adding to potential tensions between the two neighbours is Hasina\u2019s decision to re-emerge from her exile in New Delhi to address supporters abroad by videolink. On Sunday she spoke to several hundred of members of her Awami League party based in London, accusing Yunus\u2019 government of deliberately targeting minorities. Her supporters at the event insisted that Hasina remained the lawful head of Bangladesh despite the popular uprising that forced her to flee to India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India\u2019s top career diplomat was in Bangladesh on Monday to defuse tensions between the two neighbours arising from the August overthrow of autocratic ex-premier Sheikh…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}