Bangladesh's Yunus to meet key parties as pressure grows

Bangladesh's interim leader, who took over after a mass uprising last year, will meet powerful parties pressurising his government later on Saturday, days after he reportedly threatened to quit.

Muhammad Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who leads the caretaker government as its chief advisor until elections are held, has called for rival political parties jostling for power to give him their full support.

His press secretary Shafiqul Alam confirmed Yunus would meet leaders of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), seen as the frontrunners in elections that could be held by December at the earliest, and the first since a student-led revolt forced then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina to flee in August 2024.

Yunus will also meet leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim-majority nation's largest Islamist party.

"He is meeting BNP and Jamaat leaders this evening," Alam told AFP.

The South Asian nation of some 170 million people has been in political turmoil since Hasina fled, but this week has seen an escalation with rival parties protesting on the streets of the capital Dhaka with a string of competing demands.

"Our senior members will be there for the talks," said BNP media official Shairul Kabir Khan.

Jamaat-e-Islami's media spokesperson Ataur Rahman Sarkar also confirmed that they were invited.

On Thursday, a political ally and sources in his office said Yunus had threatened to resign if Bangladesh's parties and factions did not back him.

BNP supporters on Wednesday held large-scale protests against the interim government for the first time, demanding he fix an election date.

Microfinance pioneer Yunus -- who has led the country after returning from exile at the behest of protesters -- says he has a duty to implement democratic reforms before elections.

Jamaat-e-Islami loyalists have also protested against the government, demanding the abolition of a women's commission seeking equality.