The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir advised ruling Awami League general secretary Obaidul Quader on Sunday to hang the selfie of prime minister Sheikh Hasina taken with United States president Joe Biden around his neck.
‘Obaidul Quader said, what will Fakhrul say now? I say, take my advice. Hang the selfie of prime minister Sheikh Hasina taken with US president Joe Biden, around your neck. It will help you a lot,’ the BNP leader said at an event in Dhaka.
The photograph of US president Joe Biden, Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina, and her daughter Saima Wazed taken on the G20 Summit sidelines in New Delhi on Saturday became the talk of the country back home.
As the photograph went viral, AL general secretary Quader said in Dhaka that US president Joe Biden’s selfie with prime minister Sheikh Hasina rendered leaders of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party sleepless.
He also said that the United States of America was no longer with BNP, while the general people of the country had left them earlier.
Foreign minister AK Abdul Momen earlier told reporters that he had approached the US president, telling him that the Bangladesh prime minister was willing to talk to him.
Momen said that Biden had a very warm and cordial conversation with Hasina, marking a deep relationship between Dhaka and Washington.
‘I approached him, saying I am the foreign minister of Bangladesh. My prime minister is willing to talk to you. And he instantly said, why not?’ Momen said on Saturday while briefing reporters from Bangladesh in New Delhi.
The foreign minister also said that he had earlier approached US secretary of state Antony Blinken about the same while walking outside the main exhibition hall of the Bharat Mandapam International Exhibition Centre at Pragati Maidan in the Indian capital on the sidelines of the G20 Summit.
He said that they had a cordial conversation there, in which Hasina’s daughter Saima Wazed also joined.
As the prime minister and her daughter were talking to Biden, the PM’s ambassador-at-large, Mohammad Ziauddin, took out his cell phone to take a picture of that moment, he added.
‘At one stage, president Biden took the phone [from Ziauddin] to take a selfie,’ Momen said.
Biden told Sheikh Hasina that he had all the intention to enhance friendly relations with Bangladesh, according to Momen.
‘Bangladesh is my family, as I have lost my father, mother, and brothers, who were brutally killed on August 15 in 1975. I am doing everything possible for the welfare of the people of Bangladesh,’ Momen quoted Sheikh Hasina as saying to Biden.
Momen added that the US president said that he knew about her efforts for Bangladesh’s overall development and praised Sheikh Hasina’s leadership.
Responding to a question, he said that the United States of America was not putting any pressure on them. It was rather the news media creating pressure on them, the foreign minister remarked.
Momen said that the US president had accepted the prime minister’s invitation and expressed his willingness to visit Bangladesh at a convenient time.
