NEW DELHI: The government on Tuesday confirmed that it has invited Bangladesh Prime Minister Tariq Rahman for both BRICS and a bilateral visit. In a letter dated July 14, accessed by TOI, Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited Rahman to the BRICS summit as Bimstec chairman and said his participation would “significantly enrich the discussions.”After Rahman was sworn in as prime minister, Modi invited him on a bilateral visit. However, Dhaka pulled out of negotiations to finalize dates for the visit, apparently due to the lack of any firm commitment from India to extradite former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.The IEA responded to Dhaka’s claim that India had invited the Bimstec chairman and not Rahman. “I have already spoken about this before: we invited the Prime Minister of Bangladesh for a bilateral visit. He was subsequently invited to the BRICS summit as Chairman of Bimstec. So he has received two invitations, one from the bilateral side and the other from BRICS,” said MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal.Modi also said in his letter that this year’s summit has special significance as it marked the 20th anniversary of the official creation of BRICS.