“India’s Presidency a unique position….” Bangladesh on resolving Ukraine conflict

Shahriar Alam, Bangladesh’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs, stated on Friday that India can play a critical role in resolving the Ukraine conflict.

“India is in talking terms with both the parties of the war, that gives India’s Presidency a unique position to bring, invite, work hard to bring them on the table and find a possible solution,” said Alam.

This is not the first time a country’s minister has stated that India can play a key role in ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Thursday that India, as G20 president, could play a key role in facilitating the cease-fire negotiations for “just peace” in Ukraine.

“We hope that India having a G20 presidency can play a central role in facilitating a negotiating process for the cessation of hostilities (in Ukraine). Keeping the multilateral community together is important and we hope the Indian presidency can do it even more,” the Italian PM said.

Furthermore, international political strategist, Actum, US, Vlada Galan stated today that the Raisina Dialogue is a fantastic event that brings together decision-makers from all over the world.

“India finds a unique position as a peacemaker. India is trusted from both sides in the equation both with the US and other international key stakeholders,” said Galan.

“India has to take steps as it has an amazing position as an international peacemaker and it is much much more trusted than China. India can do much more. It’s Centre of Dialogue,” added the international political strategist.

Responding to the impact of war on Bangladesh, Alam said, “I do not know how much India got impacted, but we, Bangladesh initially suffered from grain. Through the Grain Initiative led by United Nation, we have smoothened the grain supply. But, of course, the energy market and oil market are volatile due to the Ukraine crisis.”

Lamenting on the fact that Bangladesh is an import-dependent country, he said, “We’re having to pay a lot more, and our citizens are suffering due to high energy bills. We’ve re-aligned and changed things domestically and the suffering has been minimized, but these cannot go on. I mean, a lot of our achievements will vanish if war continues. The impact of war is global and it’s reaching out to faraway land. If the war continues, it’s going to destroy the world.”

Speaking on the G20 Presidency of India and issues pertaining to it, the Bangladesh FM said, “India is a mature democracy, has a lot of capacity, fire-power at the MEA, must say that and we shouldn’t be too bogged down by the war only. There are so many other agendas that India has launched and Bangladesh is very happy to be invited as an Observer, as an outsider of G20. This will help also to send the message across, for a more inclusively approach and India’s Presidency can deliver much more than its predecessors.”

Alam also spoke about UN reforms, saying that while India is one of the world’s largest countries with a larger voice and presence, it’s one vote and vote of 1.4 billion people is as good as the vote of a country of a hundred thousand people.

“India deserves a much greater place at the United Nations and the UN should address the reform dialogue to include countries like India,” said Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister Alam.