WASHINGTON: Newly appointed Bangladeshi leader Muhammad Yunus on Wednesday spoke with the head of the United States’s international aid program, according to a US statement, his highest-level call with a US official since taking office.
Yunus and USAID Administrator Samantha Power discussed ways in which the US agency “might best support the interim government” on human rights, governance and economic issues, USAID spokesperson Shejal Pulivarti said in a statement.
Yunus, 84, returned from Europe this month to take the reins of the government after a student-led revolution ousted his predecessor Sheikh Hasina, who fled the country after 15 years of iron-fisted rule.
He took office as “chief adviser” to a caretaker administration — all fellow civilians aside from two retired generals — and has said he wants to hold elections “within a few months.”
On Sunday, Yunus vowed to continue two policies of major international concern: support for Bangladesh’s immense population of Rohingya refugees, and the resumption of normality for the country’s linchpin textile industry.
The issue of the country’s one-million-plus Rohingya refugees was discussed in the call with USAID Adminstrator Power, according to the US statement.
“Administrator Power also emphasized the need to protect vulnerable refugees and enable the work of humanitarian partners providing critical support,“ Pulivarti said.
Most of the refugees fled neighbouring Myanmar in 2017 after a military crackdown that is now the subject of a genocide investigation by a United Nations court.
On Sunday, Yunus said his government would “continue to support” the refugees and called for more international support.
“We need the sustained efforts of the international community for Rohingya humanitarian operations and their eventual repatriation to their homeland, Myanmar, with safety, dignity and full rights,“ he added.
The United States and European Union, among others, had earlier welcomed the establishment of the new interim government in Bangladesh.
