ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal will represent Islamabad at the swearing-in ceremony of Bangladesh’s new government this week, the foreign office said on Monday.
The ceremony follows a landslide victory by Tarique Rahman’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in Thursday’s general election — the first since the 2024 uprising that ousted former premier Sheikh Hasina.
Foreign office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi told Arab News that Iqbal would attend the oath-taking at the South Plaza of the National Parliament Building in Dhaka on Tuesday afternoon, where President Mohammed Shahabuddin is expected to administer the oath to the new cabinet.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will not attend as he is on an official visit to Austria, the first by a Pakistani premier in three decades, to review bilateral trade and investment ties.
The BNP secured at least 209 of the 299 contested seats, according to Bangladesh’s Election Commission, paving the way for Rahman, 60, to become prime minister. He returned to Bangladesh in December 2025 after nearly 17 years in self-imposed exile in Britain and assumed party leadership following the death of his mother, former prime minister Khaleda Zia.
Relations between Pakistan and Bangladesh have improved in recent months. Ties have warmed further since Hasina’s ouster in August 2024, while Dhaka’s relations with New Delhi have remained tense over India’s decision to grant asylum to the former leader.
