Dhaka-Bangladesh and the United States will hold the fifth edition of Partnership Dialogue in Washington with security cooperation having on top of the agenda.US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon will welcome Bangladeshi Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque to the Department of State for the two-day annual US-Bangladesh Partnership Dialogue that begins on Thursday.
Haque will lead the Bangladesh delegation while Shannon the US team for discussions on security affairs, development and governance, trade and investment, international and regional affairs, and other issues of mutual interest.
The United States looks forward to “constructive conversations” with Bangladesh with the objective of broadening and deepening the partnership between the two countries, said a statement issued by the US Department of State on Wednesday.
The US-Bangladesh Partnership Dialogue, established in 2012, is a regularly planned policy consultation designed to advance the common agenda and opportunities for cooperation across the full range of bilateral and regional issues.
“As security is the number one task of any government, it’ll remain on top of the agenda of the upcoming Partnership Dialogue,” US Ambassador to Bangladesh Marcia Bernicat told UNB before leaving for Washington, mentioning that importance on security is not being given by mistake, rather it deserves so.
Bangladesh will brief the US side over the progress made so far in terms of investigation into the killings. Bangladesh will also update the US side about the security measures taken for the safety and protection of foreign nationals living in Bangladesh.
The US side is likely to enquire about the progress over investigation into USAID official Xulhaz Mannan’s killing as the US government wants a transparent investigation into it so that the actual killers are tried.
The US will also want to see Bangladesh addresses a number of crucial issues, including human rights, governance, transnational crimes and cyber security as both countries need to find out ways to those challenges thus boosting ties further.
Money laundering and terror financing, migration, capacity building of law enforcement agencies, trade and investment and environment, education issues will also be discussed in the partnership dialogue, which both sides consider as a ‘big umbrella’ dialogue.
The two countries will discuss how better internet can be monitored to protect system because the attackers know how to find out weak points, said a Foreign Ministry source.
Overall human rights issue will come up ‘broadly’ in the discussion as there are reports that people are being harassed in the name of arrest of criminals and reported extrajudicial killings, foreign ministry sources said.
Both the countries will also discuss projects focusing democracy and the rule of law and ways to keep society free from conflicts denying extremists views and will make a fresh pledge that they want to do all the things to help flourish democracy.
