Dhaka (TDI): In a rare and notable development, Pakistan’s National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq and India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar held a brief meeting in Dhaka on Wednesday, marking the first direct interaction between senior figures from the two countries in months.
The meeting took place at the residence of former Bangladeshi prime minister Khaleda Zia, where both leaders had travelled to attend her funeral. The two officials exchanged handshakes and greetings, a gesture seen by observers as symbolically significant given the strained state of Pakistan-India relations, according to media reports.
Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh’s first woman prime minister and a towering political figure, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 80. Her death prompted a large-scale state funeral in Dhaka, with flags flown at half-mast and heightened security across the capital as her body was taken through the city draped in the national flag. Several regional and international leaders, including Sadiq and Jaishankar, travelled to Bangladesh to attend the funeral ceremonies.
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The encounter between the Pakistani and Indian officials is the first of its kind since May 2025, when the two nuclear-armed neighbours were engaged in a brief but intense military confrontation. That escalation followed the Pahalgam incident, which triggered cross-border clashes and sharply raised tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi.
The conflict began after an attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), an incident India blamed on Pakistan without presenting evidence. Islamabad strongly rejected the allegations, with Pakistan’s foreign ministry questioning India’s narrative and calling it “replete with fabrications”.
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During the four-day conflict, both sides deployed fighter aircraft, missiles, drones and heavy artillery, resulting in dozens of casualties before a ceasefire was reached with US mediation. Pakistan later claimed it had shot down seven Indian fighter jets, including French-made Rafale aircraft. India acknowledged suffering losses but denied the scale described by Pakistan.
