DHAKA, Bangladesh

Bangladesh and Pakistan signed six agreements on Sunday, including a deal allowing visa-free travel for official passport holders, during the first visit by a Pakistani foreign minister to Dhaka in 13 years.

The agreements were signed at a Dhaka hotel after ministerial-level talks between Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Bangladesh’s Foreign Adviser Md. Touhid Hossain. The Bangladeshi interim Cabinet had earlier approved the draft visa exemption.

Other memorandums covered cooperation on trade, foreign service academies, state news agencies, strategic studies institutes, and a cultural exchange program. A joint working group on trade will also be formed.

Dar, speaking to reporters after the signing, argued that disputes over the 1971 war — in which Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan — had already been addressed. He cited discussions in 1974 and during former President Pervez Musharraf’s visit in the early 2000s.

Calling the two South Asian nations a “family,” Dar said: “Muslims have been asked to keep their hearts clean. Thus, I call on to move forward and forget the past, and take the trade and bilateral ties to a new height.”

Hossain, however, rejected Dar’s comments. “We want Pakistan to express regret and apologize for the genocide that took place here (during the war of independence in 1971). And Pakistan should take back its citizens stranded here, and resolve the issue of Bangladesh’s claim in the mutual assets of undivided Pakistan,” he told reporters.

The adviser added that relations with Islamabad had been deliberately put on hold under the Sheikh Hasina administration, but the current interim government sought “normal relations with Pakistan, just as we want with other friendly countries.”

Dar, who arrived Saturday for a two-day trip, is also expected to meet interim head Muhammad Yunus and opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party Chairperson Khaleda Zia.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan, on a parallel four-day visit, said direct flights between Dhaka and Karachi are expected to resume by the end of the year to boost trade and connectivity.

Relations between Dhaka and Islamabad have warmed since the August 2024 uprising that toppled Hasina’s government, which was widely viewed as pro-India. The last Pakistani foreign minister to visit Bangladesh was Hina Rabbani Khar in 2012.