National War College Delegation meets with Bangladesh Ambassador to the USA

Washington, DC: A nine member delegation of the National War College of Washington, DC had a briefing session with Bangladesh Ambassador to the USA and State Minister  Akramul  Qader today. Led by Ambassador Dan Mozena, former US Ambassador to Angola and currently a faculty of the National War College, the group included service members from all branches of the US Defence forces. Two officials from the US Department of State were also present at the meeting. The briefing was in preparation for the War College delegation’s upcoming study tour in Bangladesh.

Ambassador Akramul Qader briefed the study group on issues pertaining to politics, governance and foreign relations of Bangladesh and the current state of Bangladesh-US bilateral ties. Referring to the fact that US is Bangladesh’s key trade and development partner, Ambassador Qader pointed out that the volume of bilateral trade would go up significantly if the existing tariff and non-tariff barriers, particularly in apparels trade, are removed.  Ambassador Qader noted that the commonalities in both countries’ state principles such as democracy and freedom have contributed to the development of meaningful partnerships in both bilateral and global contexts. Ambassador Qader’s briefing followed a lively question answer session when the study group members put up queries on respective focus of studies in Bangladesh. Their questions related to issues such as demography, disaster management, power and energy resources in Bangladesh, global climate change, food security, counter terrorism, poverty alleviation and human resources development etc. In response to a question on Bangladesh’s work plans to improve the power supply capacity, Ambassador Qader said that the present government since assuming office has set specific timelines to generate certain additional power to the national grid and resolve the crisis by the year 2013. Ambassador Qader expressed his hope that the planned field visits in Bangladesh would expose to the study group the resilient and hard-working nature of the Bangladeshi people. He thanked the National Defence University authorities for arranging the study tour in Bangladesh and hoped the process would sustain to the best interests of both countries’ practitioners and experts and enhanced people-to-people connectivity.