Highest-level visit after over a decade
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar visited Dhaka on Saturday on a two-day visit, the highest-level visit by a Pakistani leader to Bangladesh in over a decade. The trip, which was celebrated by Islamabad as a “significant milestone,” is a continuation amid a drastic political change in Dhaka after Sheikh Hasina left office.
Dar was received at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport by Bangladesh’s Foreign Secretary Asad Alam Siam. The previous Pakistani foreign minister to have visited Bangladesh was Hina Rabbani Khar in November 2012, when she invited the then Prime Minister Hasina to a summit in Islamabad.
Bilateral discussion and agreements on the table
On his visit, Dar is expected to hold a meeting with Bangladesh’s Foreign Affairs Advisor Touhid Hossain to discuss diverse bilateral, regional, and global issues. Up to half a dozen agreements and memoranda of understanding (MoUs) could be signed, reports indicate.
The Pakistani minister is also supposed to have courtesy calls with Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, and Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, indicating Islamabad’s desire to deal with several political groups in Dhaka.
Concurrently, Pakistan’s Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan has already visited Bangladesh and had talks with the interim government and local business leaders aimed at reviving trade and investment relations. The negotiations are aimed at establishing a new Trade and Investment Commission and reviving the previously moribund Bangladesh-Pakistan Joint Economic Commission.
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Economic and cultural cooperation on the increase
The officials confirmed that a number of agreements have been signed, some of which include the exemption of diplomatic passport holders from visas, a MoU on cultural exchange, foreign service academies cooperation, and cooperation in strategic studies and state news agencies. Discussions are also in progress for BSTI-Bangladesh Standard and Testing Institution and Pakistan Halal Authority agreements as well as joint agricultural research work.
Since Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League administration, relations with Islamabad had been tense, especially because of the 1971 Liberation War trials of Pakistani collaborators. But after Hasina’s ousting in August 2024 and the imposition of an interim government headed by Yunus, the ground has been laid for a dramatic thaw.
With Dhaka’s relations with New Delhi cooling, Pakistan is now seen as a potential strategic and economic partner. Analysts say this high-level visit could mark the start of a new era of diplomatic and economic cooperation between the two countries.
