A who’s who of Cardassian officers and Bajoran collaborators (Darhe’el, for example) were persona non grata at best, and arrested to face charges of war crimes at best. I can imagine that, if there were no specific incidents which could be linked to Gul Dukat, perhaps he and other Cardassian officials would be tolerated… But as he was the head of the occupation, I’m not sure this makes sense.
Is the best explanation that this is merely a matter of convenience to normalize relations between Bajoran and Cardassia, or is there a plausible justification for his semi-frequent visits to DS9 and/or Bajoran in the early seasons? What real historical examples are analogous to his relationship with the Bajoran (provisional) government?
Technically he did in “Civil Defense” when they accidentally triggered the counter-insurgency subroutines on the station. Although he himself ended up getting trapped on the station that was about to blow up so he was stuck helping them disable it.
Thanks for that - I thought of “Civil Defense” but couldn’t remember the exact circumstances of that pop-in.
The Bajor-Cardassia peace talks occur just six episodes later, so it’s easy to imagine that the peace process was well underway by that point.
And, of course, Dukat was there to “help”.
There was also the Federation-Cardassian peace treaty which preceded it, in which the “Cardassian punks fuck off” bit was negotiated and DMZ established.
Bjorans like to think that it was the gumption of the resistance that got the Cardassians to leave, and the Federation likes to let them think that (because telling them otherwise might piss the Bajorans off, and they deserve a win), but it was the Federation-Cardassian peace treaty that really got them to leave. That’s why any Cardassian you ask always says that they left for “political“ reasons. 
I think that was the second time he actually set foot on the station and everyone is all, “WTF are doing here?”