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Roundup: Dhaka's Response to US Request for Facilities Protested
Some political parties in Bangladesh have protested the government's permission for the United States to use the country's airspace and port facilities to attack the Afghan Taliban and demanded its immediate cancellation.
The 11 parties in a statement on Thursday deplored the terrorist blitz in the United States last week, in which thousands of innocent people perished, and offered sympathy to the bereaved families.
However, they expressed reservations about retaliatory attacks against any country without concrete evidence.
Retaliatory attacks cannot give any enduring solution to the long-drawn problems, as terrorism expanded its network into global community, the statement said.
The U.S. administration is making the Afghans the scapegoat in the name of global coalition to eradicate terrorist outfits, the statement added.
A hard-line Islamic political party in the country said Thursday Washington should avoid a conflict where innocent blood could be bled when responding to the terror attacks on the United States last week.
"We call upon the government of the United States to choose an alternative to war to fight terrorism," Moulana Syed Fazlul Karim, chief of the Islamic Constitution Movement, said in a statement.
The party is contesting next month's election as a member of the five-party Islamic National Unity Front in Muslim Bangladesh.
Karim expressed deep condolences for the thousands of people believed to have been killed when hijacked planes were crashed into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.
Meanwhile, the government on Thursday denied that U.S. planes would be arriving in Bangladesh soon to examine the facilities that exist in the country for possible multinational action to combat terrorism.
"Until now we have not received any such request from the U.S. government to examine the facilities here," Special Assistant to the chief adviser of the caretaker government on Foreign Ministry CM Shafi Sami said on Thursday.
"Bangladesh will respond positively to the request made by the United States for overflights through Bangladesh airspace, refueling facilities and use of seaports and airfields in the country," he said.
Sami's reaction came in response to reports published in a section of the press that U.S. fighter planes might land in Dhaka airport in a day or two to examine the facilities.
Several smaller political groups hold protest rallies on Tuesday, the day Bangladeshi government decided to allow Washington to use its airspace and key facilities for attacks on Afghanistan.
Ganotantrik Biplobi Jote (Democratic Revolutionary Combine) leader Barduddin Omar, Bangladesh Samajtantrik Dal (Bangladesh socialist party) and Communist party of Bangladesh took part in the protest rally.
The speakers said the United States was trying to establish a military base in Bangladesh and urged to build up resistance against it.
They also urged the government to cancel the permission given to the Unites States for use of Bangladesh's airspace and other facilities.
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