Journal De Bruxelles - Pakistan woos old rival Bangladesh, as India watches on

Bangladesh is hosting the foreign minister and trade envoy this week, its most senior Pakistani visitors in years, in a bid to reset relations scarred by the bloody 1971 conflict and shaped by shifting regional power balances.

"The brutality was unbounded," said Ahmed, 79, a banker, describing the war in which East Pakistan broke away to form Bangladesh.

Hundreds of thousands were killed -– Bangladeshi estimates say millions -– and Pakistan's military was accused of widespread atrocities.

"I would have loved to see the responsible people tried -- the ones who killed six of my friends," Ahmed told AFP.

"I don't mind normalising relations with those who opposed the war, but were not directly involved in the atrocities committed."

Contact between the two Muslim-majority nations was long limited to little more than cultural ties: a shared love of cricket, music and Pakistan's prized cotton used to make the flowing trousers and shirt known as shalwar kameez.

Bangladesh instead leaned heavily on India, which almost encircles the country of 170 million people.

- 'Flirting' -

However, a mass uprising in Dhaka last year that toppled longtime India ally Sheikh Hasina has strained ties with New Delhi and opened the door for dialogue with Islamabad.

Pakistan's Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan arrived in Dhaka on Thursday and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar is expected on Saturday.

Analysts say India, which fought a four-day conflict with Pakistan in May, will be watching closely.

"Bangladesh had been one of India's closest partners in its neighbourhood, and now it is flirting with India's chief adversary," said Michael Kugelman, a US-based analyst.

The last time a Pakistani foreign minister visited Dhaka was in 2012, according to Bangladesh newspapers.

Pakistan and Bangladesh began sea trade last year, expanding government-to-government commerce in February.

"It is the emergence of a new strategic equation -- one that reduces Indian influence and instead strengthens a cooperative axis between Pakistan and Bangladesh," Azeem Khalid, a New York-based international relations expert, told AFP.

"If sustained, this evolution has the potential to reshape South Asia's geopolitical and economic order."

Bangladesh's interim government led by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus is furious that Hasina fled to India and has defied a summons to answer charges amounting to crimes against humanity.

"Under Yunus, there have been a number of high-level meetings, trade relations have expanded, the two countries have agreed to relax visa rules and there has even been some limited military cooperation," said analyst Thomas Kean from the International Crisis Group.

- 'Wound remains open' -

Still, reconciliation faces obstacles.

Calls for Pakistan to apologise for the 1971 killings remain popular in Bangladesh, but foreign policy expert Qamar Cheema believes it is unlikely Islamabad will oblige.

"Pakistan's engagement with Bangladesh is only possible if Bangladesh does not bring historical animosity in re-establishing ties", said Cheema, from Islamabad's Sanober Institute.

"Bangladesh always demanded an apology, which (Pakistan) never provided -- and even today, doesn't have any such intentions."

Dhaka's foreign affairs adviser Mohammad Touhid Hossain, asked if Bangladesh would raise the issue of a public apology, said that "all issues will be on the table".

Bangladesh courts have sentenced several people for "genocide" during the 1971 war, accusing them of aiding Pakistani forces in the ethnic cleansing of Bengalis.

"As long as the wound remains open, the relationship cannot be sustainable," said anthropologist Sayeed Ferdous from Dhaka's Jahangirnagar University.

Others strike a more balanced tone.

"From a victim's perspective, I can't accept a warming of bilateral relations before Pakistan meets certain conditions," said Bangladeshi academic Meghna Guhathakurta, whose father was killed by Pakistani troops.

She said Islamabad "should make all information related to the war public".

However, the retired international relations professor from Dhaka University also accepted that it was "natural to have trade relations with Pakistan", and acknowledged the "geopolitical dimensions".

With elections in February, when Yunus's administration will hand over power, relations could shift once again.

"If the next government is prepared to patch up ties with India -- and Delhi is willing to reciprocate -- then the surge in ties with Islamabad could become a casualty," Kugelman said.

burs-pjm/pbt/sco

R.Michel--JdB