US, Russia debate over Bangladesh
The United States and Russia appeared to have locked in a debate over political developments in Bangladesh.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Russian embassy in Dhaka said that the country was ‘invariably committed’ to its principled stance on non-interfering in domestic affairs of third countries.
It mentioned that according to the ‘United Nations Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of their Independence and Sovereignty’ dated 1965, ‘no State has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State’.
‘States like Bangladesh, which shape their foreign and internal policy to serve their own national interests instead of following the lead of external powers, take the similar approach. We fully support the aspiration of these countries to independently determine the ways of their further development and constitute a system not subject to neocolonial methods,’ said the Russian embassy’s statement.
Sharing a news report on the Russian statement by a local daily, the US embassy in Dhaka on Wednesday asked on its official Twitter account whether the non-interference policy applied to Ukraine.
‘Does it apply to Ukraine?’ the US embassy wrote tagging a slogan ‘Stand With Ukraine.’
Russia’s statement came days after the US embassy in Dhaka in a recent statement said that human rights are at the centre of the US foreign policy and therefore, the US embassy takes seriously all allegations of human rights violations.
The US position was reaffirmed immediately after US ambassador Peter Haas ended his prescheduled meeting with Maayer Daak, a platform of enforced disappearance victims’ family members, at Shahinbagh in the city on December 14 due to ‘security concerns’.
The US ambassador’s meeting with the families of the enforced disappearance victims was interrupted by protestors, who attempted to enter the building where the ambassador was located, the US embassy later stated.
Protesters of another platform Mayer Kanna surrounded the ambassador’s vehicle there, it said.
‘We have raised this matter at the highest levels of the Bangladeshi government, as well as with the Bangladesh Embassy in Washington, DC,’ the US embassy’s statement said.
‘Human rights are at the centre of US foreign policy. Therefore, the US embassy takes seriously all allegations of human rights violations and regularly meets with a wide variety of human rights organisations,’ it said, adding that the US embassy had not received any prior communication from Mayer Kanna over the past several years.
US deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman iterated the importance of upholding human rights and holding ‘free, fair, and peaceful’ national elections in Bangladesh during a meeting with state minister for foreign affairs Md Shahriar Alam, where they discussed issues of mutual interest in the United States on October 7, according to a message from the US state department.
‘I met with Bangladeshi state minister Md Shahriar Alam and discussed the wide-ranging US-Bangladesh partnership. We also talked about human rights, the importance of free and fair elections, and Russia’s illegal attempt to seize land from Ukraine,’ Sherman tweeted on October 8.
The Russian embassy in its Tuesday’s statement said, ‘Unfortunately, in recent years [especially, after the Cold War’s end], the problem of violating the principle of non-interference has become particularly relevant, as many believe that they can infringe on the said principle for the sake of their own interests.’
It said the hegemonic ambitions were most vividly displayed by the countries, which identify themselves as developed democracies.
‘Not only they indulge in intervening in internal affairs of sovereign UN member states, but also resort to blatant blackmailing, illegal restrictions, etc. Hence, the sovereignty of many countries in the world is exposed to the unprecedented risk,’ said the statement made available on the Russian embassy’s official Facebook page on Wednesday.
It said that there were various ways of interfering in domestic affairs, as evidenced by the Ad Hoc Commission on Protecting State Sovereignty of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation in its 2017 report.
‘Under the pretext of protecting the ‘democratic values’ the work is underway to interfere in the internal affairs of those who are out of favour with the states, which consider themselves the rulers of the world,’ said the statement.
It also said that such policy evidently results in undermining sustainability of the world order, brings chaos and havoc. The incomplete list includes Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan, the statement added.
The United States and Russia appeared to have locked in a debate over political developments in Bangladesh. In a statement on Tuesday, the Russian embassy in Dhaka said that the country was ‘invariably committed’ to its...
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Ps - I think
@BananaRepublicUK and his mentor great economist Dr
@UKBengali sir consider it as fight between USA and Russia over
Helen of Bangladesh!
