Ameerah Haq in city: Dhaka can settle sea boundary issue thru' UN convention Bangladesh could settle its maritime boundary disputes with her neighbours through United Nations (UN) Convention. The countries concerned should go by the international conventions to resolve the disputes, said Ameerah Haq, Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative for Timor- Leste (UNMIT) yesterday. "UN Conventions and discussions among Bangladesh, India and Myanmar could help resolve disputes over maritime boundaries," she told journalists at a press briefing at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel in the capital. Haq, who is going to join her new assignment in East Timor said, she was disappointed over the outcome of the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen that ended without binding deals to help the victims of vulnerable countries. "We are disappointed. A lot could have been done and achieved toward reaching a legally binding accord for the betterment of our generations at the summit on climate change in Copenhagen," she said adding that the UN and many of its member-nations tried very hard to reach such an agreement. She said the UN provides a platform for holding such discussions. But the agreement or disagreement depends on the will of the member states. She, however, opined that it was up to the citizens of a country to try and go forward with environmental policy, programme and awareness that will contribute to the adaptation to and mitigation of the impact of the global warming. She praised Bangladesh's performances in UN peacekeeping missions around the world as while in Sudan she had witnessed the hard work of the Bangladesh police and army in maintaining peace under the UN peacekeeping umbrella. Ameerah admitted that as the second-largest troop contributor to the UN peacekeeping mission Bangladesh should get more commanding positions. Bangladesh earlier got the commanding position in Sudan and now in Ivory Coast. She said actually this position of troop commander rotates among the contributing countries, she clarified. Lauding the role of Bangladesh in UN system she said there were many new areas of cooperation between UN and Bangladesh. There could be more cooperation in poverty eradication, education, healthcare and infant mortality. Bangladesh has to work hard to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Asked about discrepancy between pledges committed by developed nations and the actual receipt of assistance, she said form her own experience in Afghanistan that there were a lot of pledges for development. It was very difficult to collect and keep those pledges. Ameerah, the first woman from Bangladesh appointed Under Secretary-General and third after SAMS Kibria and Anwarul Karim Chowdhury, was born in Dhaka. She has worked with the UN for last 34 years. |
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