Yunus has to initiate negotiation: Muhith

Finance Minister A.M.A Muhith said on Wednesday Nobel Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus has to initiate negotiations with the government for a solution to the on-going controversy, reports bdnews24.com. In a statement issued a day after the visiting US Assistant Secretary of State, Robert O Blake said the US-Bangladesh ties would be affected if the issue was not settled in a respectable manner, Muhith said, "We [the government] wanted a respectable solution to this issue from the beginning and are still looking for ways in this regard." The statement, signed by Gokul Chand Das, joint secretary of banking and financial institutions division under the ministry of finance, said quoting the finance minister. "The government is ready for this. But Dr Muhammad Yunus will have to come forward to solve the issue," it added. The statement was issued to refute some reports appearing in a section of the press last Tuesday and Wednesday, saying that the finance minister termed the reports on the prime minister's step to negotiate with Yunus as being "trash". Last Tuesday Muhith dismissed a press report that the prime minister had taken a move to reach a compromise on the Yunus issue. The report published in a section of Bengali dailies last Monday stated that a committee had been formed to broker a compromise on the issue of Muhammad Yunus' removal from Grameen Bank (GB) as its managing director. On Mar 02, Bangladesh Bank ordered the removal of Yunus from the post of managing director of the specialised GB, saying that he was long past his retirement age. Yunus later filed writ petitions challenging the legality of the central bank order, but the High Court rejected his petitions. The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has been opposing the decision of the Bangladesh Bank.