Khaleda meets Swaraj

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia on Friday morning made a courtesy call on the visiting Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. The more than half-an-hour-long meeting ended at 11:10am in the city’s Sonargaon Hotel where Swaraj is staying. The meeting started around 10:30am at Sonargaon Hotel's Bengal Suite. After the meeting a senior leader of the BNP said the former prime minister and the Indian foreign minister discussed bilateral issue. Senior BNP leaders including the party’s acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Standing Committee member Abdul Moyeen Khan, Khaleda Zia’s advisor Riaz Rahman, Sabih Uddin Ahmed, party’s Vice Chairman Shamser Mobin Chowdhury were also present at the meeting. The Indian minister is scheduled to meet Raushan Ershad, the Leader of the Opposition in Jatiya Sangsad (parliament), before leaving for New Delhi around 12 noon. During her 2012 Delhi visit, Khaleda had held a meeting with Swaraj, then the opposition leader in India’s Lok Sabha (parliament). Swaraj, who arrived in Dhaka on a three-day visit on Wednesday night, was given charge of the foreign ministry after the BJP government assumed office last month. It is her first visit to Bangladesh as the External Affairs Minister, according to bdnews24.com.