Through the Maldives, Pakistan stakes a claim to a bigger Indian Ocean role

When Mohamed Muizzu landed in Islamabad this week, the first Maldivian president to visit Pakistan in 11 years, the headline numbers were modest: a trade target of $200 million and a gift of olive cuttings. The more telling commitments were in the fine print. Of the 20 memorandums signed on Wednesday, one covers defence ties and maritime security, and it gives Pakistan something it has long wanted: a foothold in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The Maldives sits astride the sea lanes that link the Gulf to East Asia, a chain of atollsRing-shaped coral islands around a lagoon. The Maldives is made up of 26 of them, with about 1,200 islands. about 700 kilometres from Kochi, home of India’s Southern Naval CommandOne of the Indian Navy’s three main commands, headquartered in Kochi in Kerala., and barely 130 kilometres from India’s MinicoyThe southernmost island of India’s Lakshadweep chain, just north of the Maldives. Island. For decades New Delhi has treated it as part of its own backyard. Pakistan, whose navy has spent most of its history focused on the Arabian Sea and the approaches to Karachi and GwadarPakistan’s deep-water port on the Balochistan coast, close to the mouth of the Gulf., has rarely had a seat at that table.

One ocean, two coastlines

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif made the pitch himself, telling his guest that the same ocean that touches the shores of Karachi and Gwadar also embraces the islands of the Maldives. The line framed Pakistan not as a distant partner but as a fellow Indian Ocean state with a stake in the same waters.

The agreements back that up with practical ties. Alongside defence and maritime security, they cover cybersecurity, narcotics control, policing, fisheries and the training of Maldivian civil servants and police officers at Pakistani academies. The same day, Field Marshal Asim Munir met Muizzu and the two stressed defence cooperation, institutional links and professional exchanges. The Maldivian delegation included its defence minister, Hassan Rasheed.

An opening years in the making

Pakistan has knocked on this door before. In 2018, Qamar Javed Bajwa became the first Pakistani army chief to visit the Maldives, a trip that produced steps on counter-terrorism cooperation. That opening faded when a more India-friendly government took power in Malé later that year.

This time the politics run the other way. Muizzu came to office in 2023 on an ‘India Out’The Maldivian opposition campaign, led by Muizzu’s camp, that demanded Indian military personnel leave the islands. platform to reduce India’s military footprint in the archipelago, and has since widened his circle of partners. Pakistan, which marks 60 years of diplomatic relations with the Maldives this year, has moved quickly into that space, offering education, health workers, data-centre expertise and 100,000 olive cuttings for the islands’ tree-planting drive.

New Delhi is watching

Indian officials have said they will keep a close watch. The worry in Indian commentary is less about any single agreement than about direction: closer defence ties could, over time, bring Pakistani ships, training teams and port calls into waters India regards as its strategic perimeter, through which most of its trade passes.

For Islamabad, the value lies in exactly that. A navy that wants to be taken seriously beyond the Arabian Sea needs partners further south, and a Maldives that wants more than one friend is a natural place to start. The memorandums are only a framework, and their substance will depend on how quickly the two sides act on them. Signed memorandums of understandingStatements of intent between governments. They set out areas of cooperation but are usually not legally binding. rarely change much on their own. But the signal from this week is clear, and in New Delhi it has been received.∎