Foreign secretary talks to Indian media about Bangladesh’s take on US ‘interference’ in domestic affairs

Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen has said if any country interferes with Bangladesh's domestic affairs, obviously, Bangladesh will try to remain engaged with them and make them understand that they have no reason to doubt Bangladesh's intentions.

"Well, each country, you know, has their right or prerogative, and they are all our development partners," he told WION diplomatic correspondent Sidhant Sibal while responding to a question on the United States' position on Bangladesh's upcoming election.

Masud Momen said his Indian counterpart Vinay Mohan Kwatra had already said after the 2+2 India-US talks what India's stance is.

"He repeated that to me and also appreciated the position that elections are our internal affairs and as per our institution, as our people's wish, elections will be held," Masud said.

Election schedule has been announced by the Election Commission which is independent and the government also committed to hold free and fair elections, he said.

"And currently, all the political parties except a few are going through the various processes of nominating, selecting the candidates," Masud said.

Hopefully, he added, with people's participation, they will have free and fair elections and are also open to welcoming foreign observers so they can come and observe elections and see how free and fair they are.

Responding to another question, Masud said there are certain agricultural commodities where they have shortages.

"If we can get some assurance from the Indian authorities that in quick time, these can be supplied to Bangladesh unless there are some domestic compulsions in India like kind of shortages…So, you know, if that assurance is given, we agreed in principle, but the problem of identifying the relevant institutions and also the relevant entities and also making the arrangements as to how it could be done may take some time, but in principle, it's great," he said.

Masud said he had a very fruitful discussion with his counterpart Vinay Mohan Kwatra on Friday and discussed many bilateral issues and regional and multilateral issues as well.

"We took stock of many significant developments that took place during 2023 and how we would like to position ourselves for the near future, say 2024 and beyond," he said.

They discussed CEPA as Bangladesh has successfully fulfilled the criteria for graduation and 2026 November is the deadline when Bangladesh will be officially out of the LDC group.
"Therefore, all the international support measures will be withdrawn although some countries have individually given some transition measures to Bangladesh maybe up to 2029," Masud said.

India has also been holding various support measures, including provisions under SAFTA, whereby the LDCs under SAARC will get zero tariffs in certain categories, said the Bangladesh foreign secretary.

Therefore, he said, after 2026 it would be a different scenario. "And therefore, we have been discussing the CEPA or Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement and the two commerce ministries are in touch with each other, they have formed a technical committee," he said.

"We can have CEPA in place, preferably by November 2026," he added.

The foreign secretary was in New Delhi for the foreign office consultation with his Indian counterpart.

During the meeting, the foreign secretary discussed several issues, including connectivity, the Rohingya crisis, quota for essential commodities etc.