ISLAMABAD: Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi met Dhaka high commissioner Ruhul Alam Siddique on Wednesday and emphasized the need for more high-level meetings between leaders of the two nations to promote and strengthen bilateral ties.

Old foes Pakistan and Bangladesh have made a push in the last two years to build diplomatic, economic and cultural ties that could upend decades of historic configurations in the region.

“Foreign Minister stressed the need to promote high-level ties to strengthen bilateral relations between Pakistan and Bangladesh,” Qureshi’s office said. 

The statement said the two leaders discussed bilateral relations and the Bangladesh High Commissioner conveyed “a message of goodwill” from his leadership to Pakistan. 

“Pakistan attaches special importance to bilateral relations with Bangladesh,” Qureshi said. “Pakistan pursues agenda to enhance economic priorities and regional ties. Pakistan wishes to boost bilateral trade and economic ties with Bangladesh.”

Relations between the two countries have never recovered from the 1971 war when Bengali nationalists, backed by India, broke away from what was then West Pakistan to form a new country.

Ties reached a new low in 2016 when Bangladesh executed several leaders of its Jamaat-e-Islami party on charges of committing war crimes in 1971. Pakistan called the executions and trials “politically motivated,” arguing that they were related to the pro-Pakistan stance of the convicts during the war.

But a number of recent diplomatic developments have hinted at a thaw in the long-troubled Pakistan-Bangladesh equation.

Prime Minister Imran Khan invited his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina to visit Islamabad in a rare call in July 2020 that came just weeks after a ‘quiet’ meeting between Pakistan’s high commissioner to Dhaka, Imran Ahmed Siddiqui, and Bangladeshi Foreign Minister A. K. Abdul Momen. Pakistan last year said it had lifted all restrictions on visas for Bangladeshi citizens.