When Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Amna Baloch touched down in Dhaka on 16 April, she stepped into a capital that remembers, a city that was once at the epicenter of a war whose scars still shape regional diplomacy. Her trip, Pakistan’s first high-level bilateral visit to Bangladesh in nearly 15 years, was not just a diplomatic formality. 

It was a recalibration moment, for both nations. To the untrained eye, this was a symbolic gesture. But for Dhaka, it was a test of principles and for Islamabad, an opportunity framed by economic desperation and geopolitical recalculation. This is not just a story about two estranged neighbours speaking again. It is a story about a rising Bangladesh asserting foreign policy autonomy, a Pakistan seeking relevance, and a region at the cusp of strategic reordering.

The 18 April Foreign Office Consultations (FOC) between Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Jashim Uddin and his Pakistani counterpart Amna Baloch marked the first formal dialogue between the two nations since 2010. Yet beneath the formal setting lay a series of deeply unresolved grievances that Dhaka has long pressed Islamabad to acknowledge. 

These included a formal state apology for the 1971 genocide, reparations totalling up to $4.32 billion for wartime damages and withheld aid, the repatriation of over 3,24,000 stranded Pakistanis still living in Bangladesh without citizenship, the equitable distribution of undivided Pakistan’s financial and institutional assets and the long-ignored transfer of international aid originally meant for victims of the 1970 Bhola cyclone.

None of these issues were mentioned in Pakistan’s official statement following the talks. That silence, though predictable, felt scripted. While Bangladesh entered the room with the weight of history and moral accountability, Pakistan responded with diplomatic platitudes about “enhancing bilateral ties” and “regional cooperation”.

For Pakistan, the visit had a clear logic. Faced with dwindling foreign reserves—hovering at just over $15 billion, much of it borrowed—Islamabad is running out of regional partners and options. Its ties with India are frozen, Afghanistan remains volatile and its traditional alliances with the Gulf are now transactional.

Enter Bangladesh—a growing South Asian economy, diplomatically agile and increasingly influential within multilateral forums. Pakistan sees an opening. But it also sees a challenge: how to engage Bangladesh without confronting its own historic role in the country’s birth.

This dilemma has defined Pakistan’s Bangladesh policy since 1974, when Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto rejected a formal apology with a now-infamous line: “I didn’t come with a blank cheque.” Fifty years later, that blank cheque remains unsigned.

While Pakistan’s motives may be shaped by economic necessity, Bangladesh’s strategic opening is intentional. Since the political transition in August 2024, Bangladesh’s interim government, led by Chief Advisor Professor Dr Muhammad Yunus, has begun reengineering its foreign policy from the ground up. Gone is the rigid alignment with India that defined the Awami League’s three terms in power. In its place is an emerging doctrine: regional pragmatism, principle-based diplomacy and sovereignty-first engagement.

This was evident not only in Dhaka’s willingness to host Amna Baloch but in its firmness during the talks. Bangladesh raised unresolved war-era issues, not as a rhetorical gesture but as non-negotiable moral claims.

For Bangladeshis, the 1971 Liberation War is not a diplomatic hurdle—it is a living truth. The genocide carried out by the Pakistani military left an unfathomable number of people dead. Countless women were subjected to sexual violence. It is one of the most under-recognised war crimes of the 20th century. The trauma is not just historical—it is generational.
And yet, Pakistan has never offered a full apology. The challenge lies not in Dhaka’s demands but in Islamabad’s civil-military imbalance. Even if civilian diplomats were inclined to apologise, Pakistan’s military – still the most powerful institution in the country – will likely block it. Acknowledging genocide would mean questioning the legitimacy of the founding myths the army uses to define itself. And so, Pakistani diplomacy continues to speak of partnership, while history roars in the background.

One of the most glaring humanitarian tragedies raised in the talks was that of the “stranded Pakistanis” — more than 3,24,000 mostly Urdu-speaking Muslims who sided with West Pakistan during the war. They remain in legal limbo in Bangladesh. Some have integrated. Many live in impoverished, segregated camps. This community is not just a humanitarian wound. It is a symbol of Pakistan’s unwillingness to take responsibility for its wartime alliances—and Bangladesh’s burden in cleaning up someone else’s political mess.

The real test of these diplomatic overtures will come on 27 and 28 April, when Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar will visit Dhaka. It will be the highest-level political engagement between the two countries in years. Will there be concrete agreements on trade, flights, investment? Or will this become another ceremonial gesture that evaporates under historical tension? Bangladesh is open to cooperation but not at the expense of truth.

On the same day Bangladesh raised the 1971 genocide issue with Pakistan, it issued a strong statement towards India, demanding protection for its Muslim minority and denouncing attempts to link Bangladesh to the Murshidabad incident. This dual messaging confronting both India and Pakistan as needed is a sharp departure from previous governments. It signals the birth of a Bangladesh foreign policy no longer beholden to one power.

The April 18 meeting signals a quiet but profound shift in South Asia’s strategic rhythm. It reveals three truths that are reshaping the regional landscape: Pakistan is back at the table but remains unwilling to confront its past; Bangladesh is asserting itself not only as an economic force but as a diplomatic actor with a voice rooted in historical truth and sovereign agency; and South Asia itself is entering a new era of fluid, transactional diplomacy, where rigid alliances are giving way to issue-based engagement and where values and interests are increasingly expected to co-exist.

For Bangladesh, this engagement is not about restoring ties with a former oppressor. It is about defining relationships on its own terms, ensuring that dialogue and progress do not come at the cost of memory, justice or national dignity. Amna Baloch’s visit brought no apology. No reparations. No resolution for the stranded. But it brought clarity. Bangladesh is willing to talk but not willing to forget. This is the diplomacy of a rising middle power: grounded in justice, open to dialogue, unafraid to name the past. If Pakistan wants true engagement, it must bring not just economic gestures but moral courage. Until then, the doors in Dhaka remain open. But history walks through them, too.
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The writer is a young physician, activist and international award-winning youth leader.