Almost half a century after they separated violently, Pakistan and Bangladesh are reportedly making cautious moves to strengthen bilateral ties that in the long run could impact South Asia. 

The significant thing is that the nudge is coming from China, Pakistan’s biggest ally on every issue, particularly those pertaining to India. Playing the midwife is another ally, Turkey. 

While Turkey wants to consolidate its ties with Bangladesh, China is feverishly wooing South Asian nations with funds, development projects. mega infrastructure, military assistance, pandemic help and goodwill, especially with those that are on friendly terms with India.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister A K Abdul Momen met Pakistan’s High Commissioner Imran Ahmed Siddiqui in Dhaka on July 1. According to a media report, the meeting indicates a possible thaw in bilateral relations. While Siddiqui spoke in some details about the meeting with Turkey’s Anadolu Agency (AA), Dhaka has kept mum about the meet. A media report, issued a week later on July 8, said: “The Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry did not issue a statement about the meeting.”

The AA issued a photograph of the meeting showing Momen, Siddiqui, and two other officials. The photograph, the agency said, was provided by the Pakistan High Commission. By implication, it seems that Bangladesh's Foreign Office did not issue any photograph.

Stating that both sides agreed “to promote bilateral relations with a forward-looking approach," Siddiqui said: “Pakistan believes there is a huge potential in bilateral economic and commercial cooperation. We must work together to realize this potential with a focus on bringing our respective private sectors closer.”

“We want stronger relations with brotherly Bangladesh in all walks of life. We share common bonds of history, religion and culture,” Siddiqui added.

Although nothing dramatic has happened so far, it is unlikely too in the immediate future, given the fact that Bangladesh under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is preparing to celebrate the golden jubilee of the 'liberation' next year with great enthusiasm. Bangladesh achieved its independence from Pakistan – with India’s help - after a nine-month 'War of Liberation' on December 16, 1971.

The initial emphasis of the meeting is said to be on strengthening trade and economic ties, something to which the business communities could look forward. The trade turnover so far is "negligible" as per a statement by Bangladeshi envoy to Islamabad.

Bangladesh’s ties with Turkey were frosty for a very long time since the latter supported Pakistan in 1971 and which has continued subsequently. It recognised Bangladesh, after Pakistan did, in 1974 as an independent nation. 

Turkey was vocal in criticising Hasina government’s move to hold trials of the Jamaat-e-Islami and other Islamists for war crimes committed in 1971 for which many were convicted and hanged. The relations had dipped between 2012 and 2016.

In 2017, however, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited the country and was effusive in praising Bangladesh’s role in sheltering the Rohingyas from Myanmar. However, Dhaka was not very warm to Turkish overtures.

Bangladesh values its place among the Islamic nations and in the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC). A Pakistan-Bangladesh thaw could place Turkey, a major Islamic nation, in a position of advantage.

On Bangladesh’s domestic front, Hasina and her Awami League have always made relations with Pakistan a prickly issue. On the political front, they have fought the principal rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Islamist groups, painting them as those looking for Pakistani support and sympathy. Any improvement in Pakistan-Bangla ties could help Hasina neutralise the opposition while helping her Islamist ally, Hefazat-e-Islam.

In the Pakistan-Bangladesh relations, there is an India factor, too, that goes beyond its role in the 1971 Liberation War that Hasina has always acknowledged. But a measure of frostiness has developed recently as Bangladesh is deeply concerned about India’s moves to identify ‘foreigners’ - read Muslims - in its east and northeast.

At a rally last year, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and now India's Home Minister Amit Shah, in an apparent reference to illegal migrants from Bangladesh, termed them as "termites" and had said that his party will throw them out from the country.

His remark drew sharp criticism in Bangladesh. A Bangladeshi minister had even called it “unwarranted remark.”

In 2018, a political controversy was triggered after the final draft list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam excluded more than 4 million people from the list, and a senior BJP leader alluded that people excluded from the final list of Assam-specific NRC would be de-franchised and deported to their country.  This raised an alarm in Bangladesh. So much so that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to give his personal assurance to Hasina that people excluded from the NRC list would not be deported back to Bangladesh. It is said that Hasina did not take to the assurance of the Indian prime minister that the NRC was an "internal" move and would not impact Bangladesh. 

India-Bangladesh ties have since experienced benign neglect. The NRC is a register containing names of all genuine Indian citizens. At present, only Assam has such a register. 

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the issue to the back burner, there are indications that it could revive with the elections in Bihar due later this year and in West Bengal next year where the ruling BJP has in the past found it profitable to adopt an anti-Muslim stance, equating them implicitly with illegal immigration from Bangladesh.   

The Hasina government has sought to play the differences down. But India’s continued stance on "foreigners" especially those coming from Bangladesh, and granting citizenship to only non-Muslims of the subcontinent, as also its current tensions with China, seen as a friend of  Bangladesh, has earned its adverse comments in  the Bangladeshi media. 

Dhaka’s own ties with Beijing have been good. It has joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China is Bangladesh’s largest trade partner and armaments supplier.  Last month PM Hasina commissioned a Chinese-made corvette in the Bangladesh Navy, saying the ship "will strengthen the Bangladesh Navy's capacity to protect the country's sovereignty".  All this makes Bangladesh's nudge towards Pakistan significant.

(The writer is President, Commonwealth Journalists Association.  The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at mahendraved07@gmail.com)