Bangladesh has announced 26 PCRS components for the United Nations peacekeeping operations to meet their requirement, reports UNB.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs M Shahriar Alam made the announcement while sharing Bangladesh's Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System (PCRS) at the 2019 United Nations Peacekeeping Ministerial held at UN headquarters in New York on Friday.
The pledged 26 PCRS components to UN include 09 components from Army, 06 from Navy, 03 from Air force and 08 from Police.
Bangladesh is one of the largest contributors to UN peacekeeping operations and it first deployed uniformed personnel to serve with the Organisation in 1988 when they were deployed to help monitor the armistice between Iran and Iraq.
Over the past three decades, according to the UN, the contributions of these brave men and women in the countries in which they serve have been immense.
In addition, Bangladesh has also pledged a unit for operational-level Unmanned Aerial Surveillance (UAS) in partnership with the United States.
"We've also demonstrated our commitment by contributing to the norms setting part of the peacekeeping including through our active participation in Action for Peacekeeping Agenda and in other parallel processes like C-34," said the State Minister.
Mentioning the atrocity, crimes committed against civilians during our Liberation War in 1971, the Sate Minister said, "We endorsed the Kigali Principles on Protection of Civilians (PoC).
We've incorporated a strong and comprehensive PoC component in our peacekeeping training with in-built demonstration and tabletop exercises."
Shahriar mentioned Bangladesh's 'zero tolerance' policy to sexual exploitation and abuse in the UN Peacekeeping and reaffirmed Bangladesh's commitment for increasing the number of female peacekeepers to achieve the target set by the UN.
The State Minister said Bangladesh has been supportive to the women, peace and security agenda of the UN since leading the adoption of the Security Council resolution 1325.
"We're currently developing a national action plan to empower women in playing their natural role as peacemakers," he said.
The State Minister stressed on the importance of adequate resources and critical enablers to ensure the safety and security and also the performances of the peacekeepers.
He enumerated Bangladesh's recent supplies of modern vehicles and other peacekeeping equipment in several UN Mission.
Shahriar highlighted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's commitment to UN's Peacekeeping Operation which comes from the Foreign policy guidelines as enshrined in the Constitution and the vision of our Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman for a peaceful world.
Building on the ongoing efforts to strengthen peacekeeping operations through the Secretary General's Action for Peacekeeping initiative (A4P) and the previous peacekeeping ministerials and summits in New York (2014), the Leaders' Summit on Peacekeeping in New York(2015) and the Paris (2016), London(2016), and Vancouver (2017), 'The 2019 United Nations Peacekeeping Ministerial' has been convened at the UNHQs.
The Bangladesh delegation to the Peacekeeping Ministerial is composed of senior officials from Bangladesh's armed forces, Bangladesh's police and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the United Nations.
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