A first in 15 years, Pakistan foreign secretary Baloch meets counterpart in Bangladesh

For the first time in 15 years, Pakistan and Bangladesh are holding consultations under the framework of the Foreign Office Consultations (FOC).

Pakistani Foreign Secretary Amna Baloch is on a visit to Dhaka to hold talks with her Bangladeshi counterpart Md Jashimuddin.

After her meeting with Jashimuddin, Baloch is expected to meet interim leader Muhammad Yunus and interim foreign minister M Touhid Hossain. She is also expected to attend an interaction with the think-tanks meet the Pakistani diaspora in Dhaka.

During her official engagements, Baloch is expected to discuss the length and breadth of Pakistan-Bangladesh bilateral relationship with the goals of expanding them. Since the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last year in a movement by pro-Pakistan groups, the two countries have been mending ties that had been strained for a long time.

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Baloch’s engagements are part of the efforts for a reset of the Pakistan-Bangladesh relationship after the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last year.

Baloch’s visit is the latest high-level engagement between Pakistan and Bangladesh. The visit comes ahead of Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar’s visit to Dhaka later this month. Dar’s visit to Dhaka would be first by a Pakistani foreign minister to Bangladesh since 2012.

Last year, Yunus met Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif twice — firstly on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session in September and then at the D8 Summit in Egypt in December.

As part of the warming of ties between the two countries, the two countries resumed bilateral trade after decades in February, according to Dawn.

Pakistan and Bangladesh started direct government-to-government trade after decades with imports of 50,000 tonnes of rice, as per the newspaper.

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The newspaper reported that direct private trade had started between the two countries in November 2024 when a container ship sailed from Pakistan’s Karachi to Bangladesh’s Chittagong for the first time in decades.

Moreover, Bangladesh has eased visa rules for Pakistani nationals and has opened direct shipping and aerial routes. Pakistan is keen at improving people-to-people ties between the countries. Pakistan is also pitching itself to Bangladesh as a gateway to trade with Afghanistan, Iran, and other countries in Central and West Asia.