US willing to support Forces Goal 2030

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Bangla Tribune Report
Published : 21:23, Oct 17, 2019 | Updated : 21:39, Oct 17, 2019

This August 2015 photo shows flags of Bangladesh and USA at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. PHOTO/Pacaf.af.milWashington is willing to take military relationship with Dhaka to the advanced level and engaged with Dhaka to conclude two foundational agreements to support the Forces Goal 2030.
Political directions from the White House, purchasing power of Bangladesh, Washington’s trust and confidence on Dhaka’s capacity to manage US equipment, and the interest of military services here to buy advanced products are the main reasons for the US to come forward to have closer defense relationship.
The country is currently working with Bangladesh to conclude General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) and Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA), which are essential to enabling a closer defense relationship and expanding opportunities for defense trade.
A US government official said, according to the US laws, Washington cannot have robust defence cooperation with any country without these two agreements.
“These two defence agreements that we want to conclude with Bangladesh – GSOMIA and ACSA – they are tools to strengthen the relationship,” said a US government official.
Dhaka, which is growing at a rate of over 7 percent for the last couple of years, has been aware of these agreements for long, but now the two countries are negotiating to strike a deal as it wants to buy advanced equipment from the best defence product producer in the world, he added.
“As part of our support for Bangladesh’s Forces 2030 and in line with President’s (Donald Trump) priorities under US conventional arms transfer policy, Bangladesh military has approached us to find some equipment to help modernise its operations,” said the official.
“The President has directed us - the Department of State and Department of Defence - to find out what we can do to make it easier to get our partners this high quality equipment they want and they need to modernize their military and expand their capabilities,” he said.
Another US government official said, “We are waiting for Bangladesh civilian leadership to make a decision on these agreements which enables the purchase of more high-end agreements.”


Bangladesh has good track record of managing the conventional US equipment and that’s gives us the confidence that the country can handle sophisticated equipment, he added.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has a vision to modernise defence forces and declared the Bangladesh Military Forces Goal 2030 in line with the development advancement of the country.
It is considered as top priority area and the country has allocated significant amount resources for that purpose.
The budget allocation for 2019-20 stipulated that “Procurement of arms, ammunitions and modern warfare equipment’s, training in modern war strategies and extension of information technology is important to build a versatile and skilled army, navy and air force. Considering this, the area of modernization of armed forces has been selected as top priority area.”
The issue was also discussed at the Bangladesh-US Partnership Dialogue in June when Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque had meeting with US State Department Under Secretary David hale in Washington.
“The United States requested Bangladesh to continue the discussion on protection of classified military information shared between the two countries. Bangladesh indicated its interest in continuing the discussion,” the joint statement of the dialogue said.

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