US wants to rebuild trust with Bangladesh: Donald Lu

The United States has worked hard to ensure a free, fair and non-violent 12th National election in Bangladesh in January 7 last. Now, the United States wants to look forward, not backward, to strengthen the bilateral relations with Bangladesh.

Donald Lu, the US Assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, said this while talking to reporters after making a courtesy call on Foreign Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud at the foreign ministry in the capital on Wednesday (May 15).

He said, “I have been visiting Bangladesh for a day to rebuild the trust between our peoples. The United States worked hard for a free, fair and violence-free election in Bangladesh. And it caused some tensions. This is common in our relationship. We want to look forward now, not backward.”

Meanwhile the BSS reports, Donald Lu added: “Last year, we know there were a lot of tensions between the United States and Bangladesh. . . (but, now) we want to look forward not look back; we want to find ways to strengthen our relationship.”

Lu said he talked with the foreign minister about working on the “hard things” in Bangladesh-US relationships.

“We have lots of hard issues, (like) RAB sanction, we have (issues of) labour reforms, we have human rights, and business climate reforms,” he added.
But, Lu said, Washington also wants to build up the cooperation with Dhaka on positive issues as well “to work on the hard issues”.

“We're talking about new investments, we're talking about the more Bangladeshi students to study in the United States, we are talking about how we work together on clean energy,” he said.

Lu said the issue of corruption also came up in their talks while they discussed how to work together to fight corruption.

“We can do to promote transparency of government, to promote accountability of the officials, who may have committed accept corruption,” he said.

The assistant secretary also said Washington would like to help Bangladesh broaden its tax net, so that all Bangladeshis could pay their fair share.

“It’s been a wonderful experience, we're back in Bangladesh,” he said as the final sentence of his statement.

Lu was accompanied by US Ambassador to Bangladesh Peter Haas.

Lu arrived here on Tuesday on a three-day visit to strengthen bilateral cooperation between Washington and Dhaka as well as to demonstrate US support for a free, open, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.