Bangladesh minister leaves for US today

By Mizan RahmanDhakaBangladesh Foreign Minister Mahmood Ali will leave for Washington today to hold a crucial bilateral meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry.The meeting will be held in Washington which is expected to help take the ties between the two countries to a newer height, said a foreign ministry official yesterday.The entire gamut of bilateral relations and regional and international issues are likely to be discussed at the meeting. Earlier, Assistant Secretary for South Asia Nisa Desai held wide-ranging talks with United Nations Assistant Secretary General Oscar Fernandez Taranco, tasked by the UN Secretary General, on the ongoing political turmoil in Bangladesh during a meeting in Washington, officials said.The US point person for South Asia and UN’s peacekeeping affairs assistant secretary general spoke at a meeting in Washington DC tomorrow.Taranco visited Dhaka before the national polls last year to try reconciliation between the country’s two largest parties amid the political unrest.Ryan Norton, a spokesperson of the US State Department, confirmed that the Biswal-Taranco meeting had taken place.“They discussed several regional and international issues, and expressed concern over the ongoing violence in Bangladesh and stressed on the need for Bangladesh’s political leaders to resolve the situation peacefully,” he said in an e-mail.