Bangladesh and Iran have discussed possible cooperation in the area of fighting against extremism.
“We discussed the possibility of common joint cooperation on extremism and we will look into the exact details of how we can do that,” visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Javed Zarif said at a press briefing at Hotel Sonargaon yesterday.
He came to Dhaka Tuesday night to explain the nuclear solution it had with the Western World. He left the city yesterday.
He had official talks with his Bangladesh counterpart AH Mahmood Ali and courtesy call on Presdient Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
“We agreed at the political level that this is something that two governments are interested in exploring and both - the prime minister and the foreign minister - agreed that we explore it further and we will do that through appropriate mechanism that we have in our two governments,” he said.
He said fighting extremism and violence is an important area of cooperation and he believe that fighting extremism is not a military campaign.
“It requires economic, cultural, religious and educational efforts in order to undermine and uproot the root causes of extremism and violence,” he said.
It is on the rise particularly in Islamic world tarnishing the image of Islam, he added.
The foreign minister said absence of democratic rule, economic deprivation, abuse of religious values, being misinformed and lack of education about real Islam and trying to suppress religious feeling and sentiment of people are the some of the reasons behind the rise of extrmisim.
He said: “Some of the extremists come from very democratic society. Many people who are beheading people in Iraq and Syria speaking English and French with native accent.”
About bilateral relations, he said Iran is eager to develop and enhance cooperation in various areas including energy, textiles, manufacturing, industry, science and technology.
“We can also have cooperation among our private sectors. The private sectors of the two countries can in fact the engine of development of the two countries and that is a role we certainly welcome,” he said.
In the official talks, both the foreign ministers agreed to have a number of visit including the visit of Finance Minister AMA Muhith to Iran to convene joint commission meeting.
“We discussed financial arrangement to enable the business community to conduct trade and investment in both side. It requires specific banking arrangement,” he said.
He hoped that after lifting of sanction by November would remove the impediment of doing business between the two countries.