Govt expresses dismay over 13 envoys' statement

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) called upon the foreign missions which recently issued a joint statement on an incident in Dhaka-17 by-election to go by the Vienna Convention and refrain from any 'undiplomatic behaviour' in Bangladesh.
"We expressed dissatisfaction over their behaviour beyond the diplomatic etiquette," State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam told journalists after a meeting with 13 heads of missions and charge de affaires at the Foreign Ministry Academy in the capital on Wednesday.
He said the envoys were summoned in connection with issuance of the statement by violating diplomatic code of conduct following 'an unexpected incident' centring Ashraful Alam (Hero Alam), an independent candidate in the by-election.
Earlier, the MoFA summoned the 13 mission officials regarding their joint statement condemning the attack on Hero Alam.
The missions were of the US, the UK, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the European Union.
The state minister pointed to Article 41 of the Vienna Convention and said the diplomats' responsibility was to inform the ministry first, before media, about anything concerning a country.
He said before the joint statement was issued two persons had been arrested, and that development was not mentioned in the statement.
"It means they gave the reaction hurriedly, and did not give due importance to realistic evaluation (of the situation). Rather, the envoys urged for taking legal actions."
Mr Shahriar also referred to the legal steps taken by the Election Commission and the government on July 18, the day before the joint statement was issued.
"The fact is that they speedily criticised the stray incident without due evaluation of the government's immediate legal steps."
He noted that even the person concerned, centring whom the incident occurred, also expressed satisfaction over the immediate actions taken by the law-enforcing agencies and the government.
"For that reason, we reminded them of the code of conduct of the Vienna Convention, and advised them to be constructive. Side by side, we told them that crisis of mutual trust might take place following their behaviour beyond objective and impartial norm, bypassing the government."
The MoFA would send the statement to the foreign affairs' ministries of all these countries.
Replying to a question, the state minister ruled out the possibility of relationship with these countries getting affected.
Before any election, various overenthusiastic quarters are found active, which might have happened in this case, he added.
Four to five of the summoned envoys talked on the occasion and cleared their position, saying that they tried to assist the government.

smunima@yahoo.com