In yet another step that is expected to solidify relations between the Pakistan and Bangladesh armies, a ten-member team of senior officers led by Bangladesh’s Quarter Master General Lieutenant General Faizur Rahman left for Islamabad on August 16, information accessed by Northeast News reveals.
Lt Gen Faizur Rahman’s departure for Islamabad comes merely five days before Bangladesh Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman is scheduled to leave Dhaka for a three-day visit to Beijing, which has been organised at the initiative of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Gen Zaman will be in Beijing between August 22 and 25.
In January this year, a Bangladeshi Army team led by Principal Staff Officer in the Armed Forces Division, Lt Gen Kamrul Hassan had visited Pakistan and met Pakistan Army chief General Asim Munir.
This was followed by a visit to Bangladesh by a three-member Pakistan ISI team led by a Major General.
The other senior officers who accompanied Lt Gen Faizur Rahman are Brigadier General Kazi ASM Shahriar Pervez and Brigadier General Mohammad Abdul Aziz, besides a Colonel, two Lieutenant Colonels and a Major.
The Islamabad visit, documents show, was at the August 8 invitation of the Dhaka-based Pakistan high commission’s Defence Wing. Lt Gen Faizur Rahman and his colleagues will return to Dhaka on August 24.
While the visit’s objective is to ensure that Bangladesh-Pakistan defence cooperation “touches new heights”, the Bangladeshi officers will be taken on an intensive tour of Pakistani defence establishments where they are scheduled to meet senior officers.
Specifically, the Bangladeshi visitors will go on a tour of the Pakistan Army’s ordnance factories and other sensitive establishments, including facilities where air defence systems, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and “technical missile systems” are built and stockpiled.
A critical part of the visit will be the Bangladeshi Army officers’ meeting with their colleagues in the Pakistan Army’s facilities where MI series helicopters undergo maintenance, repair and overhauling.
Among the focus areas of the visit will be a “first-hand experience” of modern technical attributes of the Pakistani ordnance factories, selection of suitable platforms, innovations and exploring proposals for enhancing local capabilities.
The Bangladeshi team will focus particularly on UAV systems used for long-range tactical missions.
The Bangladeshi team is also expected to explore possibilities of “exchange of military technology and defence cooperation” that will give “strategic heft” to the Bangladesh armed forces.
Bangladesh’s security establishment and the three defence services have been on an overdrive to enhance military capabilities which were at held in check till August 8, 2024, when the Mohammad Yunus-led interim regime took charge.
then, the interim regime and the armed forces have been exploring avenues to strengthen defence collaboration with Turkey, Pakistan, China and the US.
