Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's office said on Friday that Dhaka had yet to decide on his proposed visit to India, which could coincide with the BRICS summit next month, amid uncertainty over the trip.
"No decision has been made yet on his India visit," the prime minister's Press Secretary AAM Saleh Shibly told PTI.
He said Bangladesh was awaiting New Delhi's response to its request for the extradition of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina and "other fugitive criminals" currently staying in India.
Shibly's comments came a day after the state-run BSS news agency quoted the premier's foreign affairs adviser Humayun Kobir as saying that Dhaka was in "no hurry to arrange a top-level visit without clearly defined national interests".
"There is no justification for rushing into a top-level visit by going beyond the national interest," Kobir said.
In recent weeks, Indian High Commissioner Dinesh Trivedi has held a series of meetings with Bangladesh's top political leadership, including Prime Minister Rahman, underscoring the need to create a conducive environment for further advancing bilateral ties.
On Monday, Trivedi said the Bangladesh premier's visit to India should take place much sooner despite "our differences".
"Issues can only be sorted out by meeting, and I am very hopeful," Trivedi said at a dinner hosted in his honour by the honorary consul general of a European country.
Bangladesh's foreign ministry had earlier said Dhaka wanted a "favourable and propitious environment" before any top-level visit.
It said weeks of diplomatic discussions over a potential bilateral visit had been severely disrupted and complicated by Hasina's virtual press conference on August 5, 2026.
Hasina, 78, was ousted from power in August 2024 following violent student-led protests.
She has been living in India since fleeing Dhaka on August 5 that year.
The subsequent interim regime led by Muhammad Yunus tried Hasina in absentia before a special tribunal and sentenced her to death for ordering a deadly crackdown to suppress the protests.
On Friday, Leader of the Opposition and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami chief Shafiqur Rahman said the prime minister could visit any country, including India, but that such visits should be based on "equality, mutual respect and friendship".
"The people of this country will no longer accept anyone's hegemony. They want relations with India based on friendship, mutual respect and equality," he told a conference of party leaders in Rajshahi in northwestern Bangladesh.
(With inputs from PTI)
