Why Pakistan is speeding to fix fences with Bangladesh | Politics News | USAEMALL.com

Islamabad, Pakistan – When the foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, landed at Dhaka airport on a windswept, overcast morning on August 23, it was the first time in 13 years that such a senior Pakistani official had visited Bangladesh, which had broken from Pakistan 54 years ago.

Dar, who also serves as Pakistan’s deputy prime minister, struck an optimistic tone, calling the “historic” tour the start of “a new phase of our reinvigorated partnership”.

Acknowledging a thaw in bilateral relations, he pointed to the “significant progress” made over the past year.

“We must work together to create an environment where youth from Karachi to Chittagong, Quetta to Rajshahi, Peshawar to Sylhet and Lahore to Dhaka join hands to face challenges and realise their shared dreams,” Dar said, naming cities across both countries.

His visit symbolised a breakthrough after months of diplomatic and military engagements between Pakistan and Bangladesh. Relations have warmed rapidly since the August 2024 ouster of former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was widely perceived as being close to India, and who was forced out by massive student-led protests.

But Masood Khalid, Pakistan’s former ambassador to China, cautioned that the past continues to complicate trust-building between the two nations.

“The new government of Bangladesh has responded positively to Pakistan’s gestures. Clearly, there were artificial barriers to close relations that have now been removed,” he told Al Jazeera.

What was now needed, he said, was a “framework for deeper engagement, where constructive dialogue can dispel misunderstandings”.

Military and diplomatic engagements intensify

While Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, leader of Bangladesh’s interim government, twice last year, few analysts expected such a swift improvement in ties, or the regular, high-level exchanges that followed.

In January, Lieutenant General S M Kamr-ul-Hassan of the Bangladesh Army visited Islamabad to meet Pakistan’s army chief, General Asim Munir. In February, Bangladesh’s naval chief, Admiral Mohammad Nazmul Hassan, followed, and two months later, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Amna Baloch travelled to Dhaka.

Dar’s trip had been delayed by Pakistan’s four-day clash with India in May, but July saw Minister of Interior Mohsin Naqvi visiting Dhaka.

Dar’s eventual arrival in Dhaka in August coincided with that of Lieutenant General Muhammad Faizur Rahman, the quartermaster general of the Bangladesh Army in Pakistan, where he held talks with the chairman of the Pakistani Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza.

Delwar Hossain, an international relations professor at the University of Dhaka, said that Pakistan’s “hasty efforts” to strengthen ties are strategic.

“Pakistan was trying to normalise relations even under the Hasina government. Now they see an opportunity to revive the bond they enjoyed in the post-1975 era,” he told Al Jazeera, referencing the period after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s founder and Hasina’s father.

Relations between Islamabad and Dhaka normalised under Ziaur Rahman, Bangladesh’s military chief-turned-president, who led the country from late 1975 until he, too, was assassinated in 1981.

“Regime change has historically created a binary of friendship and antagonism in Bangladesh’s ties with India and Pakistan. Pakistan may also want to exploit the current tensions in Bangladesh-India relations. This is a common diplomatic practice,” Hossain added.

Bangladesh’s war of independence legacy

For decades, Islamabad and New Delhi have viewed ties with Dhaka through the prism of their rivalry, a dynamic rooted in Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence.

When Pakistan and India gained independence from Britain in 1947, Pakistan was created as a Muslim-majority state with two geographically separated wings.

The western wing, home to about 34 million people of diverse ethnicities, was seen as dominant. The eastern wing, East Pakistan — which would become Bangladesh — was more populous, with more than 42 million Bengali speakers. India stood between the two parts of Pakistan.

As grievances grew in the east, India supported the Bengali liberation struggle. Pakistan’s military and allied militias carried out atrocities, killing hundreds of thousands of people and allegedly raping an estimated 200,000 women.

With India’s military backing, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Awami League party led Bangladesh to independence. He became the country’s founding president.

Hasina, who led Bangladesh for 16 years before her removal last year, is widely seen as close to India, where she has been living since last year.

Aizaz Chaudhry, Pakistan’s former foreign secretary, said that the shared grievances over India’s “regional hegemony” have spurred Islamabad and Dhaka to repair ties.

“Bangladeshis have experienced Indian hegemony, and we, in Pakistan, saw it in the May conflict. Both nations now understand the need for balance of power in South Asia,” he told Al Jazeera.

In May, India and Pakistan fought a brief but intense four-day aerial war after gunmen killed 26 people, mostly tourists, in an attack in Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir. India has blamed Pakistan for the attack, allegations that Islamabad rejects.

Shahab Enam Khan, the executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs, described Dhaka’s relationship with New Delhi as “lukewarm”, despite India being a significant neighbour, but added that foreign policy is driven by economic imperatives.

“Anti-India sentiment is often exaggerated,” he said. “Bangladesh historically avoids viewing relations, especially with Pakistan, through a purely security or military lens, preferring economic and regional cooperation.”

China’s growing role

Regional dynamics are further complicated by China’s growing influence in South Asia. Beijing, a close ally of Islamabad, had strong relations with Hasina, who successfully juggled her friendship with India and China – though the two Asian giants are otherwise rivals.

Dhaka University’s Hossain said that China had managed to retain a significant presence in Bangladesh even after Hasina’s ouster. In March, Yunus visited Beijing, followed by Bangladesh Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman’s weeklong China trip in August.

“Bangladesh is considering buying 12 J-10C fighter jets to boost its air power,” he added, referring to Chinese-made planes that Pakistan also has, and that Islamabad used in the May conflict. China is also Pakistan’s closest strategic partner, and the source of both economic loans and investments as well as military equipment.

“These developments are bringing Dhaka and Islamabad closer, transforming ties into a strong partnership,” Hossain said. 

Trade, politics as countries seek partnership

Dar’s two-day visit to Bangladesh was packed with meetings, including talks with Yunus and Adviser for Foreign Affairs Touhid Hossain.

He also met leaders from a range of political parties, including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), and the student-led National Citizen Party (NCP), which spearheaded the protests that toppled Hasina.

Those meetings were particularly significant as Bangladesh is preparing for elections in early 2026, said Abdul Basit, a former Pakistani high commissioner to India. “No matter what happens between India and Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bangladesh will forge ahead,” he told Al Jazeera. “We have issues from the past, but they can be handled skilfully and should not become barriers.”

Both could benefit from closer economic relations, too, suggested Pakistan’s former China ambassador Khalid and Dhaka University’s Hossain.

Bangladesh, with a growth rate of 6 percent since 2021, is among South Asia’s fastest-growing economies. Pakistan lags behind, recording 2.5 percent growth last year. At the moment, bilateral trade is modest, tilted towards Pakistan, whose exports to Bangladesh totalled $661m in 2024, compared with $57m in imports.

But if both countries try and revitalise trade relations, Hossain said they could each benefit from the other – both as a source of raw materials and as a potential market.

The academic said Bangladesh may benefit from importing cotton and textile products, rice, cement, fruits and processed food from Pakistan. On the other hand, Pakistan can import jute and jute products, hydrogen peroxide, chemicals and tobacco products from Bangladesh.

“Bangladesh and Pakistan have a combined population of 430 million”, he pointed out, “which is more than twice the size of West Europe”.

Historical grievances remain

The deepest fault line in Pakistan-Bangladesh relations is the legacy of the 1971 war.

Dhaka continues to demand a formal apology for the atrocities.

Then there is the dispute over the status of more than 200,000 Urdu-speaking Muslims in Bangladesh. After the partition in 1947, the community had mostly moved to East Pakistan from Bihar in present-day India. East Pakistan — today Bangladesh — was closer to Bihar geographically than West Pakistan. But Bangladesh, whose formation in 1971 was built on Bengali nationalism, has only given Urdu-speaking Muslims limited rights, and wants Pakistan to take them, something Islamabad is reluctant to do.

Bangladesh also seeks a division of the pre-1971 assets of the state of Pakistan, and the transfer of aid that was promised by West Pakistan to East Pakistan in 1970 after a devastating cyclone, in which an estimated 300,000 people died. The slow and largely inadequate response of the West Pakistan-based government is cited by many historians as a major catalyst for the liberation war that led to the formation of Bangladesh.

Still, Chaudhry, the former Pakistani foreign secretary, argued that public sentiment in both countries supports reconciliation.

“People of Pakistan are also as sad about the events of 1971 as the people of Bangladesh. I think this pain is common, and people in both countries now want to move on,” Chaudhry said.

However, Dhaka University’s Hossain said that, despite strong support from the current political forces for strengthening Bangladesh-Pakistan relations, issues related to the 1971 war continue to remain a barrier for improved ties.

“It is important to remember that the ouster of Hasina from power has not fundamentally changed the mindsets of the people of Bangladesh about the liberation war and an expectation from Pakistan for healing the past,” Hossain said.

Still, he added, Dhaka did not want to stay stuck in the past either.

“Diplomacy is a dynamic process. Both the countries can move forward for cooperation in economic, diplomatic and cultural sectors, while they will continue to maintain the healing process,” he said.