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Pakistan, Bangladesh resolve to strengthen ties and trade cooperation during OIC meeting

Pakistan, Bangladesh resolve to strengthen ties and trade cooperation during OIC meeting
Pakistan Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar (second from left) holds a meeting with Bangladesh’s Adviser for Foreign Affairs Md. Touhid Hossain (third from right) on the sidelines of a special Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) conference on Palestine, in Jeddah, ֱ, on March 8, 2025. (Foreign Office of Pakistan)
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Updated 09 March 2025

Pakistan, Bangladesh resolve to strengthen ties and trade cooperation during OIC meeting

Pakistan, Bangladesh resolve to strengthen ties and trade cooperation during OIC meeting
  • Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar meets Touhid Hossain, Bangladesh’s adviser on foreign affairs, in Jeddah 
  • Once bitter foes, ties between both countries improved after fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government last year

ISLAMABAD: The governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh this week expressed satisfaction at the upward trajectory of ties between the two nations, resolving to enhance bilateral cooperation in trade and other sectors during a meeting between their senior officials, state-run media reported. 

After decades of strained ties between the two nations, Islamabad and Dhaka have warmed up to each other after the fall of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s government last year. 

The meeting between Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Bangladesh’s Adviser for Foreign Affairs Md. Touhid Hossain took place in Jeddah during the sidelines of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers summit. 

“The meeting took place in a cordial environment, reflecting the fraternal sentiments from both sides,” state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported on Saturday. 

“Both the dignitaries expressed satisfaction over the upward trajectory of bilateral relations,” it added. “They agreed to enhance bilateral cooperation in all areas of mutual interest.”

Dar highlighted the two countries’ historical, religious, and cultural linkages, expressing Pakistan’s desire to enhance bilateral cooperation in areas of trade and people-to-people contacts, Radio Pakistan said. 

Established together as one independent nation in 1947, Bangladesh won liberation from then-West Pakistan in 1971. Relations between the two countries continued to deteriorate Hasina’s administration, which prosecuted several members of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party for war crimes relating to the 1971 conflict.

However, relations between Pakistan and Bangladesh have improved since Hasina was ousted in a bloody student-led protest in August 2024. Islamabad’s ties with Dhaka have also improved as Bangladesh’s relations with India, where Hasina has sought refuge, have deteriorated.

Last month, Bangladesh confirmed it was resuming direct trade with Pakistan after 50 years. The country’s food ministry said it would receive 50,000 tons of rice from Pakistan in March. 


UN disarmament panel passes Pakistan-led resolutions on arms control, nuclear security

UN disarmament panel passes Pakistan-led resolutions on arms control, nuclear security
Updated 08 November 2025

UN disarmament panel passes Pakistan-led resolutions on arms control, nuclear security

UN disarmament panel passes Pakistan-led resolutions on arms control, nuclear security
  • Two other Pakistani resolutions stress confidence-building measures, security assurances to non-nuclear states
  • Move follows brief but intense May conflict between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India that left around 70 dead

ISLAMABAD: The United Nations General Assembly’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security adopted four resolutions sponsored by Pakistan on Saturday, including measures on regional disarmament, confidence-building and nuclear security assurances, said an official statement.

The adoption comes against the backdrop of Pakistan’s recent conflict with India, during which the two nuclear-armed states fought a brief but intense war in May that killed around 70 people on both sides and raised global concerns about escalation in the region.

Pakistan’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations said in a statement that the committee unanimously adopted two of its resolutions entitled “Regional disarmament” and “Confidence-building measures in the regional and sub-regional contexts.”

The other two resolutions entitled “Conclusion of effective international arrangements to assure non‑nuclear-weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons” and “Conventional arms control at the regional and subregional levels” were adopted with an overwhelming majority of the member states.

“Pakistan has, for decades, led initiatives in the United Nations to advance priority issues of nuclear disarmament, regional disarmament, conventional arms control and confidence-building measures,” the statement said.

“The adoption of these resolutions reaffirms the importance of the international community’s priority on ‘negative security assurances’ as well as embracing regional approaches to disarmament and arms control,” it added, referring to pledges made by nuclear-armed states not to use or threaten nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries.

Pakistan’s call for stronger confidence-building measures comes months after its own conflict with India, which prompted one of its top military commanders, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, to warn that the recent hostilities had increased the risk of future escalation.

He said during an interview in Singapore that international mediation might prove difficult next time, highlighting the absence of crisis management mechanisms between the two countries.

Procedurally, First Committee resolutions are forwarded to the full UN General Assembly for formal adoption in the coming sessions.