Foreign Relations of Bangladesh - Middle East

Middle East

It should be noted that during the Bangladesh Liberation War, West Pakistan began a domestic and international propaganda campaign about the situation whereas India began its own media campaign in defense of the pro-independence faction. Because India was considered a non-Muslim nation, the majority of conservative Arab nations were in support of Pakistan, although interestingly enough non-Arab Muslim nations such as Indonesia and Turkey sympathised and established relations quickly. In the present, Bangladesh maintains relations to the Middle East through many areas such as commerce, history, military and most importantly religious ties which enabled the two to cooperate more easily then compared to their Western or Far Eastern partners. Bangladesh supplies over 1 million guest workers to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and other Gulf countries. In turn most of Bangladesh's oil is imported from this region. Islamic countries and charities provide economic aid usually to advance the Islamic agenda, including funding mosques and madrassas.

During the Yom Kippur War, Bangladesh supported the Arabs and Palestinians and sent a medical team and relief supply which was appreciated. In return they enabled Bangladesh to become a member of NAM at the Algiers Summit in 1973 and pressured Pakistan into recognising Bangladesh in order to get Mujib to go to the 1974 OIC Summit in Lahore, as he stated that was his only condition.

Bangladesh also took active part in trying to broker a ceasefire between Iran and Iraq during their eight year war as a member of the United Nations Security Council and participating in the UNIIMOG mission which they became Acting Head of in the last few years before withdrawal. It later helped them to be elected into the OIC Peace Committee.

Bangladesh strongly opposed the Israeli bombardment of South Lebanon which killed approximately 1,191 civilians and described it as "State Terrorism" and a double standard conflict going into detail that a non-western nation would have been labelled a terrorist and a western nation would have never been deemed a terrorist. They also temporarily contributed to the peacekeeping effort after the 2006 Lebanon War by sending in battalions of infantry. Shortly after they were asked to leave as Bangladesh was not considered neutral by the UN Peacekeeping criteria such as refusing to recognise Israel.