Foreign diplomats have been active well in advance this time: State minister

State minister for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam said that foreign diplomats posted in Dhaka have become active well in advance of the election compared to before.

The state minister was speaking to journalists at his office on Monday evening.

When asked if the backdrop of the 2014 and 2018 elections was the same as the 2023 election, Shahriar Alam said, “I see no change. They (the diplomats) can comment on that. I did not see them so active before the 2018 election as they are now. They have been active well in advance this time. They can best tell the motive and reason behind this. But I can state this clearly – who joins the election or does not join the election is not a determining factor of whether the election is credible or whether the democracy is credible.”

The state minister for foreign affairs said, the election commission, the government and Awami League want all political parties to take part in the national parliamentary election. But we cannot send in a ‘palki’ (palanquin) to bring in anyone not coming to the election.”

Concerning inclusive elections, he said the election commission, the government and even Bangladesh Awami League want to have the election with everyone’s participation. But this depends on the political parties.

Shahriar Alam said, “Whether you get the nomination from London, or the Middle East, Malaysia or Dhaka, if you can’t decide, we are not responsible for that.”

The state minister for foreign affairs condemned the attack on Ashraful Hossen alias Hero Alom, the independent candidate in the by-election held in Dhaka on 17 July. However, he was unwilling to dub the attack as election violence. He said that this took place just 20 minutes before the voting ended and did not influence the voting in any way.

The state minister said that the statement of the 13 diplomats concerning the attack on Hero Alom was a violation of the Vienna Convention and the government has apprised the respective countries of the matter.

Recently 14 US Congressmen wrote a letter to the US permanent representative to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, calling for free and fair elections to be held in Bangladesh under UN supervision. Earlier, several members of the Congress had written letters to US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The state minister said that the government is not attaching importance to those letters.

Shahriar Alam said, “When we are in such a situation, then who writes a letter or not… many such letters may come before the election. I had told you about this long ago.”

He said, “Political leaders or Congressmen are writing. But we have had very constructive meetings with the US state department. Their body language during their recent visits, the topics which we discussed and the progress that has been made… they had had praise for all this. We firmly said that if such communication is kept up, it will not be long from now that the sanctions on RAB will be lifted.”

The state minister, however, said, “We are doing what we did not do before. Our foreign diplomatic missions are contacting those Congressmen or Senators or politicians. One of them said I didn’t sign the letter, but I was told to sign it. Another one said, I read it only partially and told my staff to look into it.”