It'll improve if 'democracy restored' in Bangladesh

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia yesterday told a visiting US diplomat that the relationship between the two countries could be strengthened by "restoring democracy" in Bangladesh. 

"It is imperative that the people have the right to express their opinion without fear," BNP leader Moyeen Khan told reporters after the US official, Thomas Shannon, met Khaleda at her Gulshan residence.

The three-member US delegation did not talk to the media.

The US undersecretary of state for political affairs-designate left yesterday after meeting the prime minister, her international affairs adviser, foreign minister, and the opposition leader, among others.

Moyeen said they gave the US team a clear message that BNP was a liberal democratic party, which believed in transfer of power only through democratic means.

Meeting sources told The Daily Star that the party elaborately discussed the country's political and human rights situation, recent killings of some foreigners, law and order, the government's "repressive" acts, militancy and terrorism, US-Bangla trade, and Bangladesh's garment sector.

BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir accompanied Khaleda in the meeting.

Meanwhile, the party yesterday said a "suffocating situation" was prevailing in the country, and a fair national election was the way to get rid of it.

BNP also vowed to "restore democracy".

"...we've lost democracy after establishing it," Fakhrul told reporters after placing wreaths at the Martyred Intellectuals' Memorial in the capital.

Another BNP leader, Rizvi Ahmed, said the Awami League was "selling" the Liberation War to gain political mileage.