State minister blames BNP’s ‘foolish’ diplomacy for strained relations with Myanmar, Malaysia

State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam has said the BNP’s “foolish” diplomacy has strained Bangladesh's relations with Myanmar and is also causing troubles in sending manpower to Malaysia.

Speaking at a seminar on Bangladesh’s foreign policy, he said on Wednesday "things could have been different with Myanmar if the erstwhile Khaleda Zia-led BNP government allowed them to take gas pipeline to India through Bangladesh."

There was a proposal to build the gas pipeline through Bangladesh in 2004, but then the BNP government refused to cooperate in a way that many analysts believe created a 'trust deficit' with Myanmar with which Bangladesh is facing Rohingya refugee issues for decades.

The government is currently negotiating to return more than 650,000 Rohingyas who have fled their homes in Rakhine State after a military crackdown began on Aug 25 following attacks on army and police posts by Rohingya insurgents.

The state minister said the Sheikh Hasina government had also faced challenges initially to send manpower to Malaysia as the then BNP government fielded war criminal Salauddin Quader Chowdhury as the candidate for the OIC Secretary General defying Malaysia’s request.

“They [BNP] were in a direct fight with Malaysia,” Shahriar said, “These foolish initiatives are never going to help in your relations with countries.”

Government think-tank Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies or BIISS organised the seminar: ‘Changing global dynamics: Bangladesh foreign policy’.

The state minister said the foreign office is now preparing to achieve the targets of the Vision 2041 of Prime Minister Hasina when Bangladesh eyes to be a developed country.

“We have completed the 2021 agenda on the diplomatic front."

He said they had identified constraints in facing the new challenges and decided to increase the capacity of the diplomats.

As Bangladesh is graduating from the LDCs to middle-income country, the state minister said there will be a change of market access regime in the major European market.

Bangladesh will lose ‘everything but arms’ market access and will have to avail ‘GSP plus’, which is a far stringent process, to send products duty-free to the European market.

“We have to be prepared for that, and both diplomats and businesses need to be oriented.”

Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque said Bangladesh’s foreign policy is driven by four things - “pragmatism” with “peace and stability” at its core.

“Third is innovativeness. We are very innovative,” he said.

“Last one is humanitarianism which is also at the core principle of our foreign policy,” the foreign secretary said.

Apart from Rohingya Crisis, he said, Bangladesh had been at the forefront in all humanitarian situations in the world, and that comes from the values of 1971.