The ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the opposition Awami League have finally agreed to start a two-party dialogue to resolve differences over electoral reforms before the incumbent government serves out its term and hands over power to the interim non-party caretaker government in late October.
The signs of an end to the stand-off became evident on Friday when the secretaries of the two major parties held press conferences almost simultaneously to announce that they would sit for the much-talked-about dialogue ahead of the next general election scheduled for January, 2007.
The BNP secretary general, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, made a phone call Friday morning to the AL general secretary, Abdul Jalil, formally offering to discuss the reforms agenda of the opposition and the ways to hold a credible parliamentary election. Jalil immediately informed the AL president, Sheikh Hasina, about the offer and held an urgent press briefing to say that they accepted the offer
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