NEW DELHI: Navy chief Admiral Dinesh Okay Tripathi on Sunday stated he wouldn’t name Bangladesh “something aside from a good friend” and expressed confidence that “issues would flip round” for India’s japanese neighbor after its parliamentary elections in February 2026.India–Bangladesh relations have remained strained because the collapse of the Sheikh Hasina-led authorities on August 5, 2024. Hasina, who resigned after months of student-led protests, has been dwelling in Delhi since her ouster.“I’d nonetheless chorus from calling Bangladesh something aside from a good friend — as a result of this could possibly be a short lived and transitory second. We’ll have to attend; elections should occur, after which one thing else can occur,” Admiral Tripathi stated in Pune, the place he attended the passing-out parade of cadets on the Nationwide Protection Academy (NDA).He added that he met Bangladeshi cadets — the NDA additionally trains cadets from pleasant overseas international locations — forward of the parade, and recalled that his first go to after taking up as Navy chief was to Bangladesh.“I used to be speculated to go to some ‘fancy’ capital however I stated, ‘No. I need to first go to Bangladesh.’ Large heat, great hospitality…great nostalgia about what India did,” he remarked, probably referring to the 1971 India-Pakistan conflict that led to the creation of Bangladesh.“I am an everlasting optimist and I hope that issues would flip round so far as Bangladesh is worried,” Admiral Tripathi remarked.The neighboring nation is at the moment ruled by a caretaker administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, which assumed cost days after Hasina’s exit.Hasina was just lately sentenced to loss of life by a Bangladeshi Worldwide Crimes Tribunal for “crimes towards humanity” linked to the coed protest motion. Dhaka has repeatedly sought her extradition, whereas New Delhi maintains that the request stays beneath “consideration.”