The removing of words “Except Israel” in the new Bangladesh passport being announced on Saturday, which Israel welcomed as a “lift of decades-old travel ban”. But quick to be clarified by Dhaka that Bangladesh’s position remains unchanged toward Israel, as it still does not recognize Israel despite their decision to remove those word.
According to Dr AK Abdul Momen, Bangladesh Foreign Minister, the decision to remove “Except Israel” from their passport had already been taken since 6 months ago. He told the reporters in Dhaka that it is for the standardization of their passport that their foreign policy will remain the same towards Israel.
They are not going to establish their ties with Israel. He also says that they support the struggle of the people of Palestine, Bangladesh support two-states solutions. So their foreign policy will remain unchanged.
There is a cause on Bangladeshi previous passport, which said: “This passport is valid for all countries of the world except Israel”, however, the Bangladesh government decided to remove “Except Israel” from their passport to be valid for the entire world.
Bangladesh Foreign Minister added the statement. He said, “the removal of the observation has been done to maintain international standard of Bangladeshi e-passports and does not imply any change of foreign policy of Bangladesh to the middle east.
Bangladeshi citizens are still banned from travelling to Israel. The Bangladeshi government also confirmed that they have not been deviated from their stance on Israel and will stay on their views.
On the other hand, Israel has happily welcomed Bangladesh’s decision to remove the travel ban. Even earlier, Deputy Director General at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Gilad Cohen tweeted that he calls on the Bangladeshi government to move forward and establish diplomatic ties with Israel.
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