RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Thursday lodged a protest with Bangladeshi High Commissioner by summoning him to Foreign Office on the use of undiplomatic language in note verbale following a Facebook video controversy.

“In order to register our protest on the use of undiplomatic language in a note verbale, on an incident of obscure origin, the High Commissioner of Bangladesh in Islamabad was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the Director General South Asia and SAARC,” said Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr Mohammad Faisal. He said Bangladeshi High Commissioner was conveyed that sharing of a video by a third party cannot be attributed to Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka.

Also that Pakistan has been pursuing a policy of maintaining friendly and cordial ties with Bangladesh, he said, adding Pakistan desires to move forward in accordance with the Tripartite Agreement of 1974, wherein the Prime Minister of Bangladesh desired that the people of Bangladesh should “forget the past and make a fresh start.”

On November 01, the Bangladeshi Foreign Affairs Ministry summoned Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Dhaka and lodged a protest with him, following a video appeared on the Facebook page of Pakistan’s High Commission, the contents of which were described as ‘distortion of historical facts’ that Bangladesh’s first President Sheikh Mujibur Rehman had desired self-rule for Bangladesh and not independence.

Earlier in the day, Dr Faisal said, “The issue came to our notice two days ago…Let me clarify that the video clip was uploaded not on our website, but on the High Commission’s Facebook page by someone else.” He said the video was immediately deleted “and we have tweeted about it from spokesperson’s official account yesterday.” “We sincerely hope that the bilateral relationship between Pakistan and Bangladesh will continue to move in the letter and spirit of the Tripartite Agreement of 1974,” he insisted. He said the agreement among Pakistan, India and Bangladesh was the cornerstone for taking the relations forward among the countries. “We expect our Bangladeshi brethren to adhere to it,” he added.