Pakistan Clarifies It Issues Passports—Not Citizenship, to Rohingya, Says Interior Minister During Bangladesh Visit

By: Hafizur Rahman

Dhaka, Bangladesh – July 25, 2025

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has clarified that while his country issues passports to members of the displaced Rohingya community residing in Pakistan, it does not grant them citizenship. The statement was made during Naqvi’s official visit to Dhaka—his first high-level trip to Bangladesh since assuming office.

“We are not giving them citizenship,” Naqvi said. “But we are giving them passports with a different code or serial number so that they can be identified as Rohingya.”

His comments came following a bilateral meeting with Bangladesh’s Home Minister Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, according to a statement released by the Bangladeshi Home Ministry.

The clarification addresses long-standing ambiguity surrounding the legal status of more than 400,000 Rohingya residing in Pakistan—primarily in the port city of Karachi. Pakistan hosts the third-largest Rohingya population in the world, after Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Naqvi noted that the passports issued to Rohingya in Pakistan carry special serial numbers—marking their distinct identity and intended solely to facilitate resettlement in third countries, not to confer nationality or voting rights.

Rohingya: Trapped Between Recognition and Statelessness

For decades, Rohingya families in Pakistan—descendants of those who fled persecution in Myanmar as early as the 1940s—have lived in a legal gray zone. Many have grown up in Pakistan, speak Urdu and Bengali, and work in informal labor markets. However, they remain stateless and excluded from citizenship, education, and healthcare systems.

Rights groups argue that issuing travel documents without accompanying rights reinforces structural statelessness—denying Rohingya any sense of belonging in the countries where they have lived for generations.

“These passports help them leave, not live,” said a Karachi-based Rohingya rights activist. “They are still invisible in Pakistan.”

Bangladesh’s Response and Regional Diplomacy

During the bilateral meeting, Home Minister Jahangir Alam Chowdhury reiterated Bangladesh’s long-standing appeal for international support in resolving the protracted Rohingya crisis.

“Bangladesh is hosting 1.3 million Rohingya for the sake of humanity. For a developing country, this is an enormous burden,” he said, urging Pakistan to support safe, voluntary repatriation efforts.

The two ministers also discussed a range of bilateral issues, including counterterrorism, narcotics control, cybercrime, and police training. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) for visa-on-arrival access for diplomatic and official passport holders—suspended since the 1971 Liberation War—is reportedly close to finalization.

Additionally, Bangladesh is preparing to open a new embassy complex in Islamabad, signaling cautious steps toward normalized relations.

Naqvi’s trip marks the first high-level Pakistani delegation visit to Bangladesh since Hina Rabbani Khar’s foreign ministerial visit in 2012. Analysts see this visit as a diplomatic reset, with both sides exploring new areas of cooperation while navigating historical tensions.