Staff Reporter :
The United States wants to continue its engagement with Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in the upcoming days and to carry out constructive dialogue with the party to find out common ground.
The matter came out during a meeting with US delegation including US Department of State Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia (SCA) Afreen Akhter and BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir in a city hotel on Saturday.
The closed door meeting was also attended by BNP Standing Committee Member Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury and party’s Organising Secretary Shama Obaid. US Ambassador Peter Haas was also present on the occasion.
It was the first meeting of Mirza Fakhrul with the any US delegation after his walking out of the jail on bail spending a long time over three months.
Fakhrul was sent to jail before the parliamentary election held on January 7 over a case of vandalising the residence of the Chief Justice on October 28 last year while he was addressing a grand rally in the Naya Paltan in the capital.
Regarding Saturday’s meeting with US representatives, BNP, however, did not reveal anything, saying that they have responded the call of US side and listened to them.
“They have invited us. We have had a conversation with them,” Amir Khasru told the media.
The US Embassy Dhaka, however, in a twitter message on Saturday shed some light on a few areas they have talked.
“Engaging in constructive dialogue is key to understanding different perspectives and finding common ground,” it wrote.
It also said that the dialogue was fruitful and has listened to the area of concerns raised by BNP.
“We welcomed a fruitful discussion with BNP’s Secretary General about the current political landscape in Bangladesh and the thousands of opposition members in prison,” it further wrote.
Lastly it said that the US is “looking forward to continued engagement” with the opposition BNP in the upcoming days.
The US government has been expressing its concerns for the mass arrest of BNP leaders and workers since the beginning of the parliamentary election and afterwards. Even the US called upon the government to release the BNP leaders from jail.
The imprisonment of BNP leaders has again come up to the discussion with the visiting US delegation on Saturday.
This meeting is being considered significant of its kind as many of the top leaders of BNP are now obtaining bails one after another though many others are still in jail.
BNP top leaders who were behind bars throughout the election period are now walking out of the dungeons one after another on bail petition without full relieve from the dozens of cases filed against them.
In the wake of their releases, the leaders are articulating that they would renew their movement till toppling of the government and bringing back the voting rights and democracy.
Against the renewed intensity of BNP’s movement to whip up their party workers, the ruling Awami League is giving BNP a cold shoulder, saying that the party has lost its course.
In the political landscape and think tank, there are talking on how BNP would turn back to stand upright to make the party stronger to brave the ruling Awami League.
Many are suspicious of whether BNP would be able to bulldoze the bulwark of Awami League with the current strength or changes of leadership are indispensible to bring all party workers and likeminded political parties under one umbrella.
Amid the renewed vigour of BNP to continue their movement, the meeting with the US representatives means a lot, as said by the BNP party insiders.
BNP sources said that they want to depend on their own party strength from the centre to the grassroots level.
They would soon unfurl programmes to show the strength of BNP and people’s support for the party as it has already been reflected by the lower voter turnout in the parliamentary election.
BNP also said that the Awami League government has not yet been able to obtain the endorsement of free and fair election by the US government as well as the UN.
The Biden administration, however, has not endorse the January 7 election as free and fair rather it said that the election was fraught with irregularities and called upon the government to investigate the violence and other allegations.