Dhaka seeks equal ties with India

Bangladesh wants a friendly and dignified relationship with India based on mutual respect, good-neighbourliness and equality, Speaker Major (retd) Hafiz Uddin Ahmad said on Monday, stressing that ties between the two countries should reflect their status as sovereign states.

“We want such a kind of friendly and equal relationship that should exist between two sovereign countries,” he told journalists after a meeting with officials of the district administration at Bhola Circuit House in the morning.

The Speaker said Bangladesh had suffered extensive damage across almost every sector and at every level during what he described as 17 years of Awami League rule, leaving the country with major challenges to overcome.

“The previous government’s illegal activities brought the country almost to the brink of destruction,” he said. Hafiz Uddin said rebuilding the country and returning it to the path of development would take time, arguing that the government’s seven months in office was too short to address the damage accumulated over the previous 17 years.

“Seven months is too short for this,” he said.

Turning to the country’s reform agenda, the Speaker said the process had already begun, although major legal measures were still pending.

“I believe the reform process has already begun. We need to make a number of changes, particularly to the laws and regulations,” he said.

He expressed hope that the BNP, which he described as the country’s major popular political party, and opposition parties would reach an agreement on the proposed reforms during the next session of Parliament.

“The reform process has not yet formally started from a legal standpoint,” Hafiz Uddin said. He said an agreement between the government and opposition on the reform proposals would allow the necessary legislative changes to be made quickly.

“If the government and the opposition can reach an agreement on the reform proposals in the next session of Parliament and move quickly to implement them, including making the necessary changes to the laws, the people will be able to break free from the misrule of the past 17 years,” he said. The Speaker made the remarks during his four-day visit to Bhola.

He was later given a guard of honour before leaving the district for Dhaka at the end of his visit.