Staff Reporter:
Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen yesterday said Bangladesh does not pay heeds to what other countries are saying as Bangladesh maintains sovereign balanced foreign policy.
“Who said what … this is their headache. We do maintain sovereign balanced foreign policy … rest, I don’t know” he told the reporters when they drew his attention on recent Russian statement on Bangla-desh.
On Friday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson MV Zakharova said, “If the results of the people’s will are not satisfactory to the United States, attempts to further destabilize the situation in Bangladesh along the lines of the ‘Arab Spring’ are likely”.
The foreign minister ruled out any possibility of Arab Spring in Bangladesh saying that Dhaka has been maintaining democratic process.
“What Russia said, this is not our issue … nothing to do with us. We don’t want to be dragged into any problem,” he said.
Momen said Bangladesh is going to hold a free and fair election on January 7 next while “democracy doesn’t succumb to any pressure”.
“You must agree with me that Bangladesh’s democracy has been strengthened due to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. We will maintain this democratic process,” he said.
He said once Bangladesh is used to be termed as “bottomless basket” and “No hope of survival”, but those days are over, the country has now become the land of opportunity.
As like that, Momen said, Bangladesh would be able to overcome the terrorist acts, vandalism and arson attacks, which are being committed by evil forces who don’t believe in democracy.
The foreign minister was talking to the reporters along with India’s former external affairs state minister and renowned author MJ Akbar after attending a discussion titled “Bangladesh’s achievements in 52 years and its place in the region and beyond in the coming decades” at the Foreign Service Academy in the capital.
