World News | Bangladesh's Interim Govt Changes Top Foreign Ministry Bureaucrat

Dhaka, May 22 (PTI) Bangladesh's interim government of Muhammad Yunus on Thursday made a change to the top-level bureaucracy in the foreign ministry assigning a senior diplomat to temporarily discharge routine duties saying foreign secretary Jashim Uddin relinquished his responsibilities.

“A decision has been made that until further order, M Ruhul Alam Siddique will discharge the routine tasks of foreign secretary against the backdrop of foreign secretary Jashim Uddin's relinquishment of responsibilities,” read a foreign ministry office order.

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The brief order, signed by a foreign ministry director general, said it would be effective from May 23 and it was issued in public interest.

The development came while media reports suggested that the government decided to remove Uddin around two weeks ago for "obscure reasons".

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The Daily Star newspaper two days ago said a sense of uncertainty prevailed in the foreign ministry over reports that Uddin would be removed while another retired diplomat, Sufiur Rahman, who was appointed chief adviser's special assistant on foreign affairs with the status of a junior minister last month was yet to join.

The interim government appointed career diplomat Uddin as the country's 27th foreign secretary in September last year, a month after the ouster of the Awami League regime of prime minister Sheikh Hasina in a student-led uprising in August last year.

Foreign affairs adviser M Touhid Hossain on Wednesday, however, said that Uddin had expressed his intention to relinquish his current responsibilities, and this was not a “removal”.

“He (Jashim) wants to leave this responsibility for various reasons. He remains in government service, so the role will shift — but there is no issue of dismissal,” he said.

Hossain, himself a former foreign secretary, asked reporters to wait for few days to know who would succeed Uddin.

The mass circulation Bengali language Prothom Alo said in a state of uncertainty, the foreign ministry's internal, inter-ministerial and overseas activities were being disrupted.

The ministry officials told reporters the unease prevailed for more than ten days centring the impending change while another officer took on several key responsibilities on the verbal instructions of the foreign affairs advisor.

Uddin had stopped attending official and international meetings for several days and instead of him, another official represented Bangladesh at a foreign secretary-level meeting with Japan in Tokyo last week.

“This marked the first time in five decades that such a meeting was led by someone other than the foreign secretary of Bangladesh,” the Prothom Alo reported.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)