Country ever ready to protect its sovereignty

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said Bangladesh always believes in peaceful coexistence with all neighbours, but it is also ever ready to protect its sovereignty from any aggressive attack.

"Our foreign policy is operated with the main principle of 'Friendship to all, malice to none' as introduced by the Father of the Nation," she said.

The PM was delivering her pre-recorded speech on Bangladesh Television and Bangladesh Betar yesterday on the occasion of Armed Forces Day. Private television channels and radio stations also broadcast her around 13-minute speech.

Hasina said the government has formulated the Forces Goal-2030 following Bangabandhu's Defence Policy-1974 to protect the country's sovereignty.

"As part of continuation of that process, the Armed Forces are being rebuilt organisationally, provided with advanced training and equipped with specialised militarily adorns."

In the last one decade, the government has developed every section of the Armed Forces with modern weapons and equipment, she added.

"I would like to firmly say that the way the armed forces have been mordenised during the tenure of our government had never happened in the past," she said.

Hasina briefly described various development programmes implemented for the Armed Forces.

She hoped that the members of the Armed Forces would be able to contribute more to the country's defence and nation-building activities, imbued with the strength of honesty, patriotism, and professional skills.

She praised the members of the Armed Forces for their highest devotion and sacrifice while discharging their duties in any crisis of the country, including the Covid-19 pandemic as the frontline fighters.

While fighting the pandemic, a good number of members of the Armed Forces got infected and some of them died, the PM added.

Hasina lauded the Armed Forces for brightening the country's image abroad through discharging their duties with skills and sincerity in UN peacekeeping missions.

Talking about Bangladesh's socioeconomic development, she said, "At a time when many developed and developing countries are struggling with negative growth due to the Covid-19 pandemic, our growth increased to 5.24 percent."

The premier said the country's remittance inflow, agricultural production and export have made a turnaround as its foreign currency reserve exceeded the $41 billion mark.

"We have to move forward with our economic activities maintaining health rules. Inshallah, we will establish hunger- poverty- and illiteracy-free secular Golden Bengal as dreamt by the Father of the Nation," she said.