Forge unity to crush terrorism: PM
Pointing out her concern over global terrorism and violent extremism, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today called upon the BIMSTEC leaders to forge unity to defeat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.
"Within BIMSTEC we should be able to strengthen our cooperation to address terrorism and rise of violent extremism, find out their mentors, masterminds, abettors, financiers, arms suppliers and trainers," she told the BIMSTEC Leaders' Retreat.
Mentioning that Bangladesh has taken a 'zero-tolerance' approach to terrorism, the prime minister said that massive awareness programmes taken by the government for the youth, for families, for educational institutions succeeded in disintegrating the homegrown terrorists.
Sheikh Hasina also called for concluding the BIMSTEC Free Trade Agreement (FTA) which was negotiated in 2004.
"We need to reiterate our political will in favour of the FTA implementation as it will help to enhance intra-regional trade and boost the BIMSTEC activities and programmes ... we may target to finally adopt the four FTA-related Agreements during the 20th Anniversary of BIMSTEC next year," she added.
The premier said the past two decades witnessed some progress in efforts to connect the two forums. Though "understandably, our progress has been slow, the groundwork has been done".
"It is now time to hasten the process of integration," she said.
Sheikh Hasina said Bangladesh was committed to regional integration and cooperation as "we drew an inspiration for peace and development from Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman".
The premier recalled Bangabandhu's February 1972 speech in India's Kolkata when he said "Let there be an end, once for all, to the sterile policy of confrontation between neighbours".
"Let us not fritter away our national resources but use them to lift the standard of living of our people . . . we will be wanting to cooperate with all concerned for creating an area of peace in South Asia," Sheikh Hasina quoted Bangabandhu as saying in that address.
Now, the premier said time has come for all to seriously relook at "how we want BIMSTEC to be more effective and result-oriented as well as to draw synergies with other groupings".
"While we have 14 areas of cooperation under BIMSTEC, I believe we should try to focus more on some key areas like trade and investment, energy, connectivity and counterterrorism for next five years," she said, adding that regular ministerial meetings on the key areas of cooperation are important for building momentum.
Sheikh Hasina said BIMSTEC should aim to develop regional projects to improve the lives and livelihoods of the people of the region to effectively connect the forum to the peoples and ensure the organisation's sustainability and visibility.
"In the long run, we may think of a funding mechanism of our own, while collaboration with external funding sources can also be explored (to fund the regional projects), the prime minister said.
She called for expediting the process for regional transport connectivity and suggested that the working group on transport connectivity continue on planning, implementing and monitoring of the prioritised projects with the active support of ADB.
The premier said BIMSTEC may consider a coastal shipping agreement while signing of MoU on grid interconnection and its implementation at the earliest for better sub-regional grid connectivity and energy trade.