MEETING WITH KHALEDA

The visiting US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, Nisha Desai Biswal, on Friday stressed the need for strengthening democratic process for a sustainable socio-economic development in Bangladesh. She expressed the view during an hour-long meeting with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, at the latter’s Gulshan house. ‘Nisha has said that democratic process should be kept on for a sustainable socio-economic development,’ BNP vice-chairman Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury told reporters after the meeting. ‘She said that democratic process and socio-economic development should go hand in hand,’ he added. Khaleda told Nisha that the US position about democracy and development was praiseworthy, Shamsher said. During the meeting that started at 6:10pm, bilateral issues were discussed, he said. Asked about present US stance on the January 5 elections, Mobin replied ‘No comment.’

Meeting sources said that there was a 15-minute-long one-to-one conversation between Khaleda and Nisha. BNP gave Nisha a written statement over the present political situation and ‘anti-democratic activities of the Awami League government,’ said sources present at the meeting. They said the prime minister’s adviser HT Imam’s recent remarks about January 5 elections were also discussed. This is Nisha’s second trip to Bangladesh as she had been here soon after taking over as the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs on October 21, 2013. US ambassador to Dhaka Dan W Mozena accompanied Nisha. BNP leaders Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Reaz Rahman and Sabihuddin Ahmed were present at the meeting.

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