DHAKA: Relations between the government of Bangladesh and an influential group of foreign missions in Dhaka have become frosty after the government’s refusal to permit the group to hold an international conference on the country’s next general elections here.

The group of diplomats, known as the Tuesday Group, comprises ambassadors and high commissioners from 14 countries. They are: Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Republic of Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Commission and the resident coordinator of the United Nations.

The Tuesday Group was planning to hold the conference on ‘International Electoral Best Practices’ at the end of the year or early next year. The group had reportedly secured Dkaha’s permission for the event in July this year.

The government leaders, however, gave second thoughts to the issue and its possible political implications, particularly after opposition Awami League demanded a change in the composition and jurisdiction of interim non-party caretaker government that holds national elections in Bangladesh. The government later refused to let the event take place.

“When the opposition is irrationally demanding changes in Constitution for partisan purposes , we cannot allow foreigners to fan up such undemocratic demands,” said a senior minister of Khaleda Zia’s cabinet on Monday.

“Some recent statements of some of the diplomats here clearly suggest that they have sympathy to opposition’s attempt to impose its electoral agenda on the majority party.”

While refusing the grant the permission of the conference to the diplomats, the government said the move was tantamount to interference in domestic politics and would prove to be counter-productive.

The government made it stance clear when the Canadian High Commissioner David Sproule, and Norwegian ambassador Aud Lise Nordheim met foreign affairs adviser Reaz Rahman at his office and raised the matter on Sunday.

“We asked them how a sovereign, elected government could allow it. It is counter-productive; it is interference in Bangladesh’s domestic politics and it seems that it is like taking sides and no government can allow it,” said Reaz after the meeting.

“Bangladesh already has a good record of ensuring three free and fair elections in the past, which were acclaimed at home and abroad,” he said. When it was pointed out that the Tuesday Group had held a similar election conference in Pakistan, Reaz said democracy in Pakistan cannot be compared with democracy in Bangladesh.

The envoys, however, reportedly tried to reassure the Bangladesh government that the Tuesday Group had no intention of whatsoever to interfere in internal politics and that they have made the plan with good intentions to provide ‘technical support’ to the Election Commission to make the election free, fair and credible. But in vain.

That the things were not moving in the right direction got clear when Sproule, the Canadian ambassador who currently leads the group, abruptly postponed a scheduled Press briefing on Sept 14, citing ‘operational reasons’.

The group’s invitation letter sent to the media establishments in Dhaka, said that they would make a ‘major announcement’. Although members of the Tuesday Group remained tight-lipped about the causes of the postponement of the press briefing, this is an open secret that it was done because of Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan’s critical public remarks about the move of the foreign diplomats.

The minister expressed concerns to the local press the diplomats’ frequent critical remarks’ on Bangladesh politics on different occasions.

However, since the government’s refusal to allow the Tuesday Group to hold any conference on the election process, none of the members of the group made any public statement on the issue.