Can’t shut eyes to international terror: Sheikh Hasina

DHAKA - It isn’t possible to work “keeping the eyes shut” towards threats to other countries as everybody faces the threat of international terrorism, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said.

“In the present times all have to face the threats of international terrorism. Now it is not possible to work keeping the eyes shut towards the threats to other countries’ sovereignty,” Hasina said Wednesday while addressing military officers at the National Defence College.

A pact on fighting international terrorism is high on the agenda when Hasina visits India for summit level talks next month. Officials here said a draft on it has been finalised and sent to New Delhi.

Hasina’s Awami League, which swept the parliamentary poll last year, pledged a regional task force to fight terrorism. Mooted by her government, it has received an in-principle nod from India and the US.

Harking back to the country’s independence in 1971 and New Delhi’s role in it, Hasina recalled that her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, had “lost no time” in demanding that India withdraw its military personnel.

India did so within two months. “It is rare in the world history that after winning a war, foreign army is taken back to their country,” she said.

Bangladesh became free after a joint military campaign at the end of which 93,000 Pakistani military personnel surrendered in December 1971.

Hasina told the officials that protecting geographical unity was not their only task as the security systems in the current world are undergoing changes.

“Various matters, including food security, information security, business security and social security, are not possible to be faced by a lone country. That’s why various types of regional organisations are being formed,” she was quoted as saying by New Age newspaper Thursday.

Hasina urged all the graduates of National Defence Course-2009 to attain capacity for forecasting security threats and hoped that they would devote themselves to collecting and analysing information in the interest of the people.

Besides 24 Bangladeshi armed forces officers, 20 officers from 11 countries - India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Nepal, Sudan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia - attended the course.