BD’s ‘no foe’ diplomacy grows ties with Pakistan

DHAKA: Recent contacts between Pakistani and Bangladeshi leaders have provided a rare glimpse of a possible, if not yet probable, detente after years of strained ties between the two countries, according to observers, foreign media reported.

Since the independence of Bangladesh [then East Pakistan] from Pakistan in December 1971 following a nine-month bloody war, the relationship between the two South Asian Muslim states have passed critical courses with ups and downs.

In recent years, already icy relations between the two were fueled by the conviction of several Jamaat-e-Islami, and main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party leaders by a controversial local tribunal — called the International Crimes Tribunal — and subsequent executions on accusations of committing atrocities during the 1971 War of Independence.

Bilateral ties, however, have seemingly improved as Dhaka follows its constitutional “friendship to all and malice to none” diplomacy with Islamabad in recent weeks.

“For the greater interest of our country we will keep relations with all and our constitutional foreign policy is- friendship to all and malice to none,” Bangladeshi Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen told Anadolu Agency.

After a courtesy meeting between Momen and Pakistani High Commissioner in Dhaka Imran Ahmed Siddiqui earlier this month, and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s telephone call to Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina, India’s English daily the Hindu published a article underlining Dhaka’s “growing intimacy with Pakistan and China.”