Shawdesh desk:

Counselor of the US department of state, Derek Chollet, on Wednesday said that they remained ‘hopeful’ about future relations with Bangladesh — building on the strong partnership that has developed over 51 years.

‘We are hopeful for the future. It has been 51 years of very strong partnership. We are looking forward to the next 51 years and beyond. We have many shared challenges but we have many common opportunities that we have talked about today,’ Chollet told reporters after his meeting with foreign minister AK Abdul Momen at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Bangladesh has seen a series of visits by senior US officials in recent months with the last by US assistant secretary for South and Central Asia, Donald Lu.

The US state department counselor said that the US placed considerable importance on its relationship with Bangladesh, which was growing politically, economically and in terms of security.

On the Rohingya issue, he said that they were continuously working and trying to help Bangladesh, which was hosting over 1 million Rohingyas, and also trying to deal with the root cause of the crisis in Myanmar.

Talking to reporters, foreign minister Momen said that Bangladesh was happy to receive US diplomats. ‘We had a very good discussion. I am very happy. We are looking forward to better days,’ he said.

The foreign minister said the US would be with Bangladesh while dealing with the Rohingya crisis.

Chollet and his delegation members met with prime minister Sheikh Hasina at Ganabhaban in the morning.

He met with senior officials in Bangladesh to discuss ‘coordination and response’ to the Rohingya refugee crisis, strengthening cooperation in international fora, and advancing the ‘security partnership’ between Dhaka and Washington.

The US sees ‘huge potential’ in relationship with Bangladesh and a lot of ‘room to grow’, he added.

‘We are deeply concerned about the situation in Myanmar which is only getting worse,’ Chollet said before his arrival in Dhaka.

The US state department counselor said that they were doing whatever they could to cooperate with Bangladesh and trying to ease the pressure on the country from the Rohingya crisis by providing critical assistance to support its humanitarian needs.

The counselor serves at the rank of under-secretary as a senior policy advisor to the US secretary of state Antony J Blinken on a wide range of issues and conducts special diplomatic assignments as directed by him.