Latest news with #ChiefAdviser
Times of Oman
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Times of Oman
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer declines to meet Muhammad Yunus
Dhaka: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has declined to meet Bangladesh's Chief Adviser, Muhammad Yunus, after Awami League concerns over the reportedly scheduled meeting, a diplomat said on Thursday. Bangladesh's Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus is now in London on a bilateral official visit to the United Kingdom. The visit is taking place from June 10 to 13, 2025. Earlier, the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry said that the Chief Adviser is likely to hold a bilateral meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer during the visit. "British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's meeting with Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus is not taking place", a Bangladeshi diplomat told ANI over the phone without elaborating. The Bangladesh Awami League on Monday expressed deep concern over UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's reportedly scheduled meeting with Muhammad Yunus, Chief Adviser of Bangladesh, the party said in a statement. "The Awami League has today expressed deep concern over UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's reportedly scheduled meeting with Muhammad Yunus, the self-declared Chief Adviser of Bangladesh, warning that any formal meeting lends legitimacy to an unelected and unconstitutional administration", said the Awami League statement posted on its Facebook page. A formal letter from the Awami League's UK branch has been sent to Downing Street, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the King's Foundation, and the Commonwealth Secretariat, urging British officials not to unwittingly launder Yunus's administration, just as Bangladesh's crisis deepens, it added.
Times of Oman
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Times of Oman
Bangladesh Chief Adviser announces national election in first half of April 2026
Dhaka: The Bangladesh interim government on Friday announced that the national election will be held in the first half of April 2026. "I am announcing to the countrymen today that the next national elections will be held sometime in the first half of April 2026. Based on this announcement, the Election Commission will provide you with a detailed roadmap for the elections in due course", said Muhammad Yunus, Chief Adviser to the interim government of Bangladesh, in an address to the nation through state television, BTV, on the eve of Eid-ul-Azha. The Chief Adviser had said until now that he would hold elections by June 2026. However, political parties, including the BNP, were expecting a roadmap for the elections by December of this year. According to The Daily Star, the National Citizen Party had been pushing for the election to be held after reforms are completed. The announcement of the national election is a major development for Bangladesh politics after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government in August 2024. Chief of Army Staff General Waker-Uz-Zaman, had said on May 21 that the national election should be held by December this year, The Daily Star reported. Yunus said in his address that after one-and-a-half decades, a truly representative parliament will be formed in the country. He urged the people of the country "to obtain specific commitments" from all political parties and candidates that they will approve without any change, in the first session of the next parliament, the reforms on which consensus has been reached, the report said. "You [people] will make them [political parties] promise that they will never compromise on the independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and national dignity of Bangladesh and will not sell the country's interests to any foreign power," he said, according to the report. He also reminded the people of the country that this election is not just about peaceful elections. It is an election to build a 'New Bangladesh'. "In this election, there will be only known parties. They will have their known symbols. But the voter has to find out who the candidates behind this symbol are to what extent they are ready to build a 'New Bangladesh'. How committed are they?" he said, according to the report.
