"Bangladesh will not send soldiers to Afghanistan," Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told a meeting of ruling Awami League's advisory council late yesterday, according to the Samakal newspaper.
Quoting meeting insiders, the newspaper said, Hasina conveyed her government's "precise stand" on sending soldiers to Afghanistan as several members of the council, comprising senior party leaders, opposed the idea of sending combat forces to the war ravaged nation citing "public sentiments".
Prime Minister's press secretary Abul Kalam Azad could not immediately confirm the premier's comments but the Prothom Alo newspaper supplemented the Samakal report, saying Hasina agreed with the advisory as they said Bangladeshis had a reservation regarding the US military intervention in Afghanistan.
Several newspapers earlier reported that US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke last week requested Bangladesh to send combat troops to Afghanistan at a meeting with foreign minister Dipu Moni on the sidelines of the 65th UN General Assembly, also attended by Hasina.
A foreign office statement published today, however, said that the US envoy had asked for Bangladesh's cooperation in Afghanistan's rebuilding "but there was no discussion about sending troops to Afghanistan".
"We said Bangladesh can contribute to the national development of Afghanistan through providing training to officials in administration, police, education and some other sectors," the statement quoted Moni as telling Holbrooke.
According to the statement the foreign minister also said Bangladesh sent troops to different United Nations blue helmet missions "as peacekeepers" under the UN supervision and it will think over the issue if the UN took any such projects in Afghanistan.
Several foreign policy experts in the country have also expressed reservations against sending combat forces to Afghanistan. Former foreign secretary Faruque Chowdhury said: "it would be contrary to Bangladesh's foreign policy while both the countries, moreover, were members of the South Asian regional grouping of SAARC and had an historic link since the medieval age".
"It will be a suicidal decision... the Afghan issue was made a military issue in someone's interest and Bangladesh does not have any reason to be party to it," Chowdhury said.