Just a day before BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s schedule to appear before the court on two graft charges, the US Ambassador in Bangladesh and some western diplomats held a meeting with the former premier yesterday.
A group of ambassadors, high commissioners and charges d’affaires of Australia, Canada, Denmark, EU, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States met Khaleda to discuss current events in Bangladesh.
All the diplomats entered the office riding on a black car without any flag.
Khaleda’s special Assistant Shamsur Rahman Shimul Biswas welcomed the diplomats at the gate before the party’s standing committee member Nazrul Islam Khan ushered them into the first floor of the office.
Diplomats entered the Gulshan office around 6:30pm and left after a two-hour meeting.
This was the first meeting of newly-appointed US Ambassador in Dhaka Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat with Khaleda.
“We encouraged confidence-building measures including de-escalation of Bangladesh’s political conflict in the interest of fostering safety, stability, growth, human rights and democracy in Bangladesh,” Greg Wilcock, Australian high commissioner in Bangladesh, told journalists after the meeting.
He said: “Our meeting with the BNP chairperson followed a similar meeting with the honourable foreign minister on Sunday. Recalling our previous statements on recent events in Bangladesh, and those by the UN, we called for an end to Bangladesh’s continuing violence.”
Wilcock also said: “As friends and partners of Bangladesh, we welcomed the opportunity to meet the BNP chairperson. We will continue to express our common hopes to all sides.”
Earlier, an EU parliamentary delegation, the UK high commissioner and the Turkish ambassador visited Khaleda after she holed up in her office on January 3.
A Dhaka court issued an arrest warrant for the 69-year old three-time prime minister after she did not turn up before the court in the hearing of Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust graft cases.
Meanwhile, a warrant allowing police to search the Gulshan office was also issued for possible explosives and fugitive suspects inside the office in a case over the blasts in Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan’s meeting in Gulshan last month.
US response
Asked what Khaleda and Bernicat discussed, the US Embassy told the Dhaka tribune: “They discussed the current political impasse.”