We consider relatively Meir–Keeler condensing operators to study the existence of best proximity points (pairs) by using the notion of measure of noncompactness, and extend a result of Aghajani et al. [‘Fixed point theorems for Meir–Keeler condensing operators via measure of noncompactness’, Acta Math. Sci. Ser. B35 (2015), 552–566]. As an application of our main result, we investigate the existence of an optimal solution for a system of integrodifferential equations.