UN charter stays at core of BD foreign policy: High Commissioner

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The High Comm¬issioner of Bangladesh, Tarik Ahsan, remarked that the UN Charter was at the core of Bangladesh’s foreign policy and his country’s constitution mainly focuses on the fundamental rights having been inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“Bangladesh has also made its presence felt at the UN by involving itself in various activities while being a member of the Security Council from 1979 to 1980 and from 2000 to 2001 and otherwise. In fact, Bangladesh is a member of some 20 UN bodies, including UNICEF, UNESCO, International Labour Organization (ILO) and Comm¬ittee on Migrant Workers,” he observed during a talk on ‘Bangladesh and the United Nations’ organized by the English Speaking Union of Pakistan (ESUP) at the Beach Luxury Hotel, Karachi. 

“Apart from this, Bangladesh also plays an important role in world peace and development. In 2015, we had sent our own all-women peacekeeping unit to Haiti. Our peacekeepers have earned the country respect of many countries,” he stated. 

“Bangladesh considers disarmament a key to peace building. The country is party to core disarmament treaties and conventions, including the Comp-rehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Tre¬aty,” the High Commissioner added. 

During the question-answer session, Tarik Ahsan asserted that his country was not seeking assistance for managing Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing Myanmar but desired them to be repatriated instead.

“Bangladesh already had 400,000 displaced Rohingya refugees and after the violence started on August 25, we got some 600,000 more bringing the total to around one million refugees. Whatever aid that we get for the Rohingya Muslim refugees will sooner or later dry up, too; so instead we want to build up international pressure on Myanmar to let them return home safely,” he said. 

“For this our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed has put forth a five-point proposal for the United Nations General Assembly. Firstly, stop violence, second, to send a fact-finding mission to Myanmar, and third, for the UN to establish a safe zone inside Myanmar for the safe return of these people. The fourth point was for the international community to involve itself in their sustainable return and the fifth related to the implementation of the Kofi Annan Commission on Rakhine State,” he explained. 

“It is better to have someone in Bangladesh invite you and not go there without a reference,” he replied when asked by the difficulties being faced by the Pakistan nationals in getting visas of Bangladesh. 

“There are many people in Bangladesh, too, who want to visit Pakistan and have similar problems as they face the same kind of restrictions. Mutual understanding bet¬ween the two centres can help here,” he reckoned.

He conceded that although tourism was a promising sector in Bangladesh but it was still in a development phase. “Bangladesh is a populated country full of local tourists. There is little capacity for foreign tourists right now,” he opined.