The Foreign Ministry is keeping mum about the negative remarks of two ministers against the US.
“We want to improve relationship with all countries. But this type of remark is a hindrance to development of the relationship,” said a senior official of the Foreign Ministry.
Food Minister Kamrul Islam and Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal at a programme on Saturday made some derogatory remarks about the largest trading partner of Bangladesh.
“We do not understand what they would achieve by making such negative remarks against a country,” the official said.
He said both the countries had a successful meeting on Ticfa in Washington last week and at least four ministers visited the US for attending different programmes in November.
“In the TICFA meeting, we discussed how we can improve our trade, investment and development cooperation,” he said.
“The Bangladesh delegation also had a breakfast meeting with former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, where she wanted to know more about investment climate in Bangladesh,” he added.
More and more US companies are willing to come to Bangladesh but for that, a congenial environment needs to be created, the official said.
The Bangladesh delegation also had a meeting with AFLCIO officials, which put forward the motion to scrap GSP facility for Bangladesh.
“It was a very positive meeting where we discussed in details about how to make things better,” the official said.
US is the single largest export destinations of Bangladeshi goods with over $6 billion export last year.
Another Foreign Ministry official said: “It’s us who have to face the foreign diplomats and respond to their unpleasant questions.”
Any negative remark by a minister rings a bell in Washington and they enquire about it, he said.
Bangladesh and the US have formal engagement at political level, trade cooperation level and defence level.
“We have partnership dialogue at the foreign secretary level, trade dialogue under Ticfa at the commerce secretary level, security dialogue at the additional secretary level and defence dialogue at brigadier general level,” the official said.
The official said Bangladesh has such structured relationship with very few countries.
