August 29: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday met Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in his maiden visit here to bolster ties between the two nations. “And they are connected to some degree with some of the operatives here, and we made that very clear in our conversation”. Kerry met with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and had said there was “no argument about it [the links]”, reported PTI.
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Kerry said he does not believe “the government of Bangladesh has its head in the sand”.
“We’re working with partners to make Bangladesh resilient against all odds”, Kerry said.
“So I’m confident that our assistance to Bangladesh will increasingly be created to help the government address terrorism threats from domestic and trans-national organizations”, he said.
Bangladesh police said Sunday they were hunting more extremist leaders after shooting dead the suspected mastermind of a deadly cafe attack, on the eve of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s first visit.
“Perhaps the media would do us all a service if they didn’t cover it quite as much”, he added. Attacks over the past two years have killed atheist bloggers, foreign aid workers and religious minorities. It was the worst militant attack in the country’s history.
“One silver bullet can not solve this kind of security problems – it requires multiple approaches to tackle militancy or terrorism”, said Ahsan H. Mansur, executive director of Dhaka-based Policy Research Institute, “There is a political side to it”. “He said they have enough expertise to combat terrorism”. Bangladesh’s economy depends heavily on the fortunes of the $28 billion garment industry, which is struggling to improve a poor safety record epitomized by the Rana Plaza disaster of 2013 in which a factory collapse killed more than 1,100 people.
In November 2015, Obama criticized the media for focusing too much on the Islamic State and terrorist attacks like the one in Paris.
“I understand your sensitivity, the issue is under review”, Kerry said yesterday.
Hasina requested the USA to extradite the killers of “Bangabandhu” and most of his family members, who are living there.
Bangladeshi Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali received Kerry shortly after an aircraft carrying him from Geneva touched down Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at about 10:10 a.m. local time.
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The US Secretary is to meet with government officials to discuss growing cooperation on global issues, according to a US State Department statement issued in Washington.
