Two days after Bangladesh’s National Security Adviser (NSA) Khalilur Rahman returned from a five-day visit to the UAE and US, the Mohammad Yunus-led interim government today said it could consider reconciliation with the Awami League if the party apologised for its misrule.
Even as doubts persist on the Yunus regime’s willingness, not to speak of the Jamaat-e-Islami and its ally National Citizens’ Party’s ability to derail the electoral process, to conduct the February 12 polls, the Bangladesh Chief Adviser’s statement today has caught the attention of both the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Ever since the arrival in Bangladesh of BNP’s then acting Chairman Tarique Rahman on December 25, 2025, the party has taken a plunge into the electoral process with multiple leaders speaking out against the Jamaat-e-Islami which seeks to pose a challenge to the former at the hustings.
This is not the first time that Yunus has sought a public apology from Awami League and its leader Sheikh Hasina who is in exile in India.
But today’s statement comes two days after Khalilur Rahman’s visit to the US where he met State Department Assistant Secretary for Central and South Asia Paul Kapur and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Allison Hooker.
While details of Khalilur Rahman’s meetings with Kapur and Hooker are not known, Bangladeshi political analysts said the NSA met the two key State Department officials and discussed in detail the evolving electoral process and whether there was room for holding inclusive elections.
The current State Department dispensation has not publicly demanded that the Yunus regime conducts inclusive elections even after America’s new ambassador to Bangladesh, Brent Christensen, took charge at the US embassy in Dhaka on February 12.
While Washington has remained silent on this score, New Delhi has time and again favoured that the election in Bangladesh should be inclusive.
There has been no official response by Dhaka to the Indian stand but the matter did come up for some discussion during a meeting between Khalilur Rahman and his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval in New Delhi in November 2025.
However, Yunus’ statement today indicates that Khalilur Rahman may have been given a message by the US authorities to offer an opportunity to the Awami League to apologise for its alleged misrule and human rights violation.
Whether the Awami League in general and Sheikh Hasina in particular will reciprocate was not immediately known.
But Dhaka-based political analysts said that in the event the Awami League leadership seizes the opportunity, the electoral field could open up.
This could mean issuance of a fresh tafsil or electoral notification that would defer the February 12, 2026, polls to a later date.
