Dhaka, May 24 (Inditop) Tariq A. Karim, who served in India as Bangladesh’s deputy high commissioner and was later ambassador to the US and to South Africa, may return to New Delhi to head the mission.
His appointment “has already been decided” by the government as among those that are “political” in nature. This has caused concern among the serving diplomats in the foreign office, New Age newspaper said Sunday.
Karim was Bangladesh’s deputy High Commissioner during 1984-88 before moving to Beijing for the next four years. He had served in UK, Thailand, Iran, Germany and Saudi Arabia in different capacities since 1969.
Vice President of the Bangladesh Enterprises Institute, Dhaka, since January, the retired diplomat is currently on a sabbatical at the University of Maryland in the US.
Dhaka University teacher Neem Chandra Bhoumik is tipped to be ambassador to Nepal.
Among the “strategically important diplomatic appointments”, the newspaper said Saiful Haque, an expatriate Bangladeshi businessman in Russia, will take over as the country’s ambassador in Moscow, replacing Mohamed Mijarul Quayes, who is a candidate for the post of foreign secretary.
The government is also set to appoint Abul Barakat, an economist and teacher of Dhaka University, as head of the Bangladesh’s permanent mission in Geneva; former Bangladesh high commissioner in London Giasuddin as ambassador to Germany; entrepreneur Shahed Reja as ambassador in Kuwait and the Finance Minister M.A.M. Muhith’s younger brother Abul Momen as ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
Quoting unnamed serving and former ambassadors, the newspaper said the “political” appointments denied a chance to serving officials to gather experience .
It pointed out that four of the ten high commissioners to New Delhi – Faruq A. Choudhury, Farooq Sobhan, C.M. Shafi Sami and Hemayetuddin – went on to become foreign secretaries.
