Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Friday said engaging a lobbyist is a normal process in the United States and Bangladesh will lobby if it is required anywhere in the USA.
“In our country, we call it Todbir (lobbying). We’ll lobby where it’s needed. We’ll see how we can work it out within the legal framework,” he told reporters after attending a function in Dhaka.
Dr Momen said everybody has the right to engage in whatever they want to do and it is a legal process while there is nothing against it.
Asked about engaging lobbyists by the BNP in 2018, the foreign minister said he does not know about that particular issue. “It’s their headache, not mine.”
Responding to a question, Dr Momen said Bangladesh and the United States are democratic countries and there are many setbacks to the democratic system.
“All democracies have imperfections. There are gaps in each democracy. It’s a continuous process. If we’ve any shortcomings or weaknesses, we’ll definitely try to fix them. We’ll try to take care of those,” he said.
The foreign minister also said it is a matter of happiness that democracy reaches the grassroots level in the country.
“From time to time, they face many disasters and they solve them. Now we have a problem that we can solve.”
Referring to Americans as a very mature nation, Dr Momen said although there are sanctions on RAB, the US State Department says RAB has reduced terrorism in the last few years. “It’s their independent study.”
Earlier, the minister inaugurated the international conference on "Law & Legal Education During and Post-Pandemic" held in BILIA Auditorium in the city.
Celebrating 50 Years of BILIA (Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs) the conference was jointly organized by BILIA and the Asian Association of Law Professors (AALP).
Chairman of BILIA Barrister M Amir-Ul Islam, Ambassador Muhammad Zamir, Dhaka University Dean of Faculty of Law Prof Dr Md Rahmat Ullah, and Director of BILIA Prof Dr Mizanur Rahman spoke, among others, at the inaugural ceremony of the conference.
