News
January 24, 2025
Pakistan Pulls Closer to Post-Hasina Bangladesh as Geopolitical Ground in South Asia Appears to Shift
By Abid Hussain
Islamabad: The flags of their nations planted on a table between them, Pakistan’s army chief, General Asim Munir, sat with Lieutenant General SM Kamrul Hassan, an officer in the Bangladesh military.
It was the high point of Hassan’s trip to the Pakistani capital, where he also met other senior Pakistani military officials. Commenting on Tuesday’s meeting between Munir and Hassan, the Pakistani military’s media wing described the countries as “brotherly nations”.
That’s not how Dhaka and Islamabad have viewed their relationship for much of the 54 years since Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan, winning independence after one of the 20th century’s bloodiest wars.
The tension in their ties only deepened during the nearly 16-year rule of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina , who was ousted from power in August after mass protests and forced to flee to neighboring India, which backed her government.
But since Hasina’s departure, Pakistan and Bangladesh have edged closer to each other in an apparent reset at a time when politics in both countries have a general anti-India sentiment, overriding the historical animosity between Islamabad and Dhaka.
Munir and Hassan “underscored the importance of strengthening military ties and reaffirmed their commitment to insulating this partnership from any external disruptions”, the Pakistani military said. And their meeting was one in a series of high-level exchanges between the nations.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Muhammad Yunus, head of Bangladesh’s interim government, during an international summit in Egypt’s capital, Cairo, last month after the two also met in September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
And Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, is expected to visit Bangladesh next month, the first such trip since 2012, prompting analysts to suggest that the geopolitical ground in South Asia could be shifting.
The genesis of the historical animosity between Islamabad and Dhaka lies in Bangladesh’s war of liberation from Pakistan in 1971. Pakistan’s military and its allied militias fought Bengali rebels and massacred hundreds of thousands of people, according to independent estimates.
Backed by the Indian army, Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and his Awami League party led Bangladesh to independence. He became its founding president and earned himself the title of “Father of the Nation”. - Al Jazeera
Courtesy Al Jazeera
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