Bangladesh has appointed a US-based Government Relations (GR) firm to further strengthen the Dhaka-Washington ties, reports the official news agency BSS. The appointment has been made for one year at a monthly payment of USD 20,000. State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam told BSS that the US firm Nelson Mullins has been appointed to maintain government to government relations.
Providing the reasons for the move, Minister Shahriar Alam said that the government has decided to appoint the GR firm as it is difficult for the small number of Bangladeshi diplomats posted in Washington to engage with the US government administration which is too wide and multifaceted.
State Minister Shahriar Alam hoped that the GR firm would help Dhaka in further deepening its ties with Washington while the two countries remain engaged in a series of bilateral events this year marking 50 years of the establishment of diplomatic relations with the US. As part of the bilateral engagements, Foreign Minister Dr. A K Abdul Momen has been invited by the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Washington on April 4.
The appointment comes in the backdrop of the uproar over the US sanctions on six of the retired and serving senior officials of its elite law enforcement agency Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) over alleged human rights violations announced on Dec. 10 last year. The US treasury department had cited allegations by NGOs that RAB and other Bangladeshi law enforcement agencies are responsible for more than 600 disappearances since 2009, 600 extra judicial killings since 2018, and torture which included opposition party members, journalists, and human rights activists in Bangladesh. The government of Bangladesh has denied all these allegations.
Comment here