Dhaka, Nov 15 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is skipping the trip to Pakistan because of the programmes on the Armed Forces Day, her office says.
On Nov 12, a senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, had told bdnews24.com that the Prime Minister cancelled her planned visit to Pakistan to attend the 8th D-8 Summit.
However, there was no official announcement to this effect.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar had come on Nov 9 on a short visit to Dhaka to formally invite Hasina to attend the summit.
The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) in a media statement on Thursday said that Dr Gowher Rizvi, the International Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister, will represent her at the D-8 summit in Islamabad.
During, the Pakistani minister's visit to Dhaka, the government had urged her that Pakistan offer unconditional apology for the genocide its troops had committed during Bangladesh's War of Independence in 1971.
But Khar responded to the demand by advising Bangladesh to look forward and forget the past.
Prime Minister's Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad said Hasina was very much looking forward to attend the meeting of D-8 of which she was one of the founder members but has had to cancel her plans because of conflict in her schedule.
The spokesman further elaborated that the Prime Minister had a previous commitment to attend the Armed Forces Day celebrations in Dhaka on Nov 21 and that it would be impossible for her to arrive in Islamabad for the summit on the following morning.
The eighth summit of the heads of state and government of the D-8 countries in Islamabad is scheduled to begin from Nov 22.
Hasina had first visited Pakistan back in 1999 in her first stint in office, since Bangladesh won it freedom from the oppression of the Pakistani rulers in 1971. She had embarked on tours to both Pakistan and India then to ease escalating tension between Bangladesh's two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Bangladesh-Pakistan bilateral engagement in the last four years has been limited during the term of the current government led by the Awami league, the party which led the nation's freedom struggle.
Bangladesh emerged as an independent country after a bloody battle against Pakistan for nine months in 1971. At least three millions people were killed in the massacre by the Pakistani army during the war while more than 200,000 women were raped and murdered.
Following Khar's visit, Pakistan's influential daily Dawn in its editorial said Pakistan should apologise to Bangladesh for its role in 1971.
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