Nuclear Power Plant
Bangladesh focusing on safety: FM
Foreign Minister Dipu Moni yesterday said Bangladesh is now focusing more on safety aspects of the proposed Rooppur nuclear power plant to be set up by Russia.
"We will host a workshop with experts from Russian Federation, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Bangladesh within next two months before Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to Moscow," she said.
Safety issues involving nuclear power plant need to be addressed on priority basis, as radiation leakage in Fukushima plant in Japan created concerns, said Dipu Moni while briefing journalists yesterday.
The prime minister, she said, will visit Russia after addressing the concerns at the planned workshop about the safety of nuclear power plant. "Ensuring human safety is our government's priority concern," she added
The foreign minister, who had bilateral meeting with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on April 6, said she discussed with Lavrov the developments in the preliminary steps for the establishment of nuclear power plant.
They also had discussion on assistance of Gazprom in the oil and gas exploration sector, modernisation of old electricity generation units, and the status of draft agreements some of which are ready to be signed during the prime minister's visit.
Dipu Moni informed that a delegation of Gazprom will visit Dhaka soon to discuss with Bangladesh officials to increase the efficiency of gas through compressors from Russia.
About Bahraini foreign minister's recent visit to Dhaka, she said that as Bahrain is currently facing internal political crises, the safety issue of the Bangladesh migrant workers there was discussed.
Dipu Moni is likely to visit Bahrain at her counterpart's invitation at the end of this month or early next month.
At the press briefing, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni, who apparently turned down the US Country Report on Human Rights-2010 on Bangladesh, questioned the sources of the information about the violation of human rights as mentioned in the report.
Replying to a question, she said the report has been prepared based on newspaper reports, NGOs, and some international organisations, and no information from the government.
She claimed that the source of information is weak and it lacks research and she does not feel it logical to discuss the report in details. "Bangladesh is a democratic non-communal state and has been elected twice to the UN Human Rights Council for its positive track records of human rights," she said.
However, the foreign minister said the government is ready to overcome any shortcomings, if there are any, detected by anyone from in or outside the country.
On another question whether Dhaka-Washington dispute over Prof Muhammad Yunus's matter led to the State Department to prepare the report with harsh observation about human rights, the foreign minister said the US may have its own observation about him, but Bangladesh as an independent and sovereign nation acts according to its own law.
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