The Ministry of Foreign Affairs appears to be displeased with meetings Home Minister Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir is scheduled to attend with relatively junior US officials during a visit to Washington next week.
During a visit to the US from July 11-12 Alamgir is expected to sign two instruments, a cooperation initiative on counterterrorism and a Memorandum of Understanding on counter-narcotics, but sources said the foreign ministry has reservations about some meetings with low-ranking US officials.
According to the home minister’s schedule he has appointments with State Department Undersecretary Wendy Sherman, Assistant Secretary Robert J Blake, Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism Jerry Lanier and/or DAS Siberell, and Drug Enforcement Administration’s Chief of Operations James Capra.
He will also attend a combined meeting at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz and ICITAP Director R Carr Trevillian attending. He is also likely to meet FBI director Robert Mueller or his deputy.
When US Ambassador Dan Mozena was asked about the minister’s meeting with the FBI he said: “I hope so. It’s always hard to say and I am sitting here. He (home minister) wanted to go to Quantico where FBI has a training school. I know that’s been planned.”
The not-so-enthusiastic sentiment of the foreign ministry has been communicated to the home ministry, said a foreign ministry official. The official said: “His schedule does not match with the stature of a minister.”
The official said the home minister’s scheduled meeting with Wendy Sherman does not match with his profile. He said: “Now, if our minister is meeting with Undersecretary Wendy Sherman, next time no minister from Bangladesh will get an appointment of Deputy Secretary William Burns, let alone Secretary of State John Kerry.”
The Bangladeshi counterpart of Undersecretary Sherman is Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque.
The official said the instrument on cooperation initiative on counterterrorism is to be signed during Wendy Sherman’s visit in May. He said: “It was scheduled to be signed by Home Secretary CQK Mustaq and Sherman, and now the minister is signing it.”
US Ambassador Mozena said he hopes the instrument would be signed, as it would “solidify and institutionalise this partnership which is already extremely effective.” But he was reluctant to speak about the salient features of the instrument.
Another foreign ministry official said the counterterrorism instrument mostly focuses on intelligent information sharing and training.