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Bangladesh has introduced new e-passports for its citizens, scrapping the words \u201cexcept Israel\u201d saying, the change was made only to follow \u201cinternational standards\u201d while the travel ban to that country remained unchanged.<\/p>\n Bangladesh has introduced new e-passports for its citizens, scrapping the words \u201cexcept Israel\u201d saying, the change was made only to follow \u201cinternational standards\u201d while the travel ban to that country remained unchanged.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe changes have been made to maintain global standards,\u201d foreign minister Dr AK Abdul Momen told newsmen but added that it \u201cdoes not mean that there has been a change in Bangladesh\u2019s position\u201d regarding Israel.<\/p>\n
The foreign ministry in a subsequent statement said the newly issued passports would not allow either its holders to travel to the world\u2019s lone Jewish country as speculated by some media.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ban on travel of Bangladeshi passport holders to Israel remains unchanged,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n
But the changes in new Bangladeshi passports immediately drew Tel Aviv\u2019s response that urged Dhaka to establish bilateral diplomatic ties for the \u201cbenefit and prosper\u201d of the people of the two countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat news! Bangladesh has removed travel ban to Israel,\u201d Israeli foreign ministry\u2019s deputy director general for Asia and the Pacific Gilad Cohen said in a tweet.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThis is a welcome step & I call on the Bangladeshi government to move forward and establish diplomatic ties with Israel so both our peoples could benefit & prosper.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the Bangladesh foreign ministry said the tweet drew its attention while \u201cthe confusion appears to have emanated from the new booklets of E-passports which does not contain the observation \u2018all countries excepting Israel’\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe removal of the observation has been done to maintain international standard of Bangladeshi e-passports and does not imply any change of Bangladesh\u2019s foreign policy towards the Middle East,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
the statement said \u201cBangladesh has not deviated from its position on Israel and Bangladesh remains firm on its longstanding position in this regard\u201d.<\/p>\n
It reminded all that Bangladesh condemned \u201cthe recent atrocities inflicted upon the civilians by the occupation forces of Israel in al-Aqsa mosque compound and at Gaza\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBangladesh reiterates its principled position concerning the two-State Solution of the Palestine-Israel conflict in light of the UN resolutions recognizing pre-1967 borders and East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine,\u201d it read further.<\/p>\n
Dhaka does not recognize Israel and all along threw its support for Independent Palestine.<\/p>\n
Until May this year Bangladesh used to issue passport with a declaration that the travel document was \u201cvalid for all countries of the world except Israel\u201d but updated e-passports read \u201cThis passport is valid for all countries of the world\u201d.<\/p>\n
During the past eight decades of Israel-Palestine conflict Bangladesh all along stridently supported the Palestinians\u2019 cause and never recognised the existence of Israel while allowed Palestine to set up its embassy in Dhaka as an independent nation.<\/p>\n
Israel, however, was one of the first nations to recognize the independent Bangladesh in February 1972 after its emergence in 1971 as an independent country following a nine-month long war against Pakistan.<\/p>\n
Dhaka at that time rejected the recognition saying this recognition was not acceptable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bangladesh has introduced new e-passports for its citizens, scrapping the words \u201cexcept Israel\u201d saying, the change was made only to follow \u201cinternational standards\u201d while the travel ban to that country remained unchanged. \u201cThe changes have been made to maintain global standards,\u201d foreign minister Dr AK Abdul Momen told newsmen but added that it \u201cdoes not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-14"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10295,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10294\/revisions\/10295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deshnews24.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}