ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar on Tuesday stressed the need to enhance cooperation in trade and tourism with Bangladesh, the Pakistani foreign office said, as Dhaka and Islamabad attempt to forge closer ties amid improving bilateral relations. 

Pakistan and Bangladesh have improved their strained ties since August last year after former premier Sheikh Hasina fled to India, forced by a violent student-led protest. Pakistan and Bangladesh were once one nation but split in a brutal 1971 war, with Bangladesh drawing closer to India. 

Bangladesh’s High Commissioner Iqbal Hussain Khan met Dar, who also serves as Pakistan’s foreign minister, in Islamabad to discuss bilateral ties, the Pakistani foreign office said. 

“Appreciating the positive trajectory of bilateral ties, he [Dar] emphasized the need to further expand cooperation- especially in trade, tourism, & people-to-people exchanges,” the foreign office said. 

In February this month, Bangladesh and Pakistan started direct government-to-government trade with Dhaka importing 50,000 tons of rice from Islamabad, a sign of improving relations between the two. 

Direct private trade between the countries restarted in November 2024, when a container ship sailed from Pakistan’s Karachi to Bangladesh’s Chittagong. It was the first cargo ship in decades to sail directly between the two nations. 

In recent months, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus have met on the sidelines of international forums, including the United Nations General Assembly in New York and the D-8 Summit in Cairo.

These interactions have been described as cordial, with both leaders expressing a desire to deepen bilateral cooperation.