US State Department's Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel has reiterated Washington's position once again that his country favours no political party in Bangladesh.
“So I spoke a little bit about this yesterday, and you've been very clear – I've been very clear about this. I will reiterate that political violence has no place in a democracy, and the United States, we favour no political party,” he said in the regular briefing in Washington when journalist Mushfiqul Fazal Ansari asked the same question on Thursday.
Ansari, Begum Khaleda Zia's former deputy press secretary when she was prime minister, runs the news portal justnewsbd.
In his question, he claimed that “the state apparatus works overtime to obstruct the opposition rally while facilitating the counter-program by the ruling party. The police alone have arrested thousands [of] opposition activists, as the opposition party claims,” and then asked: “So how you are evaluating this confrontational situation in Bangladesh as the regime is inciting violence in the streets?”
Patel said: “We support Bangladesh's goal of holding free, fair, and peaceful elections. We've also emphasized the importance of the United States and Bangladesh working together to achieve this goal and certainly continue to believe that this endeavour has no space or room for political violence.”
