Bangladesh not informed of Turkey envoy recall

“We have no information, officially or unofficially, on this matter,” he told on Thursday evening, three hours after Reuters published a news item on the recall of Devrim Ozturk.

Alam said, “The ambassador told us that he was going out of the country (Bangladesh). He also informed us as to who would act for him in his absence.”

In its report, Reuters noted that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had announced the recall of Ozturk, who has been his country’s ambassador in Bangladesh since September last year.

Quoting diplomatic sources in Ankara, Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu said the foreign ministry had recalled him to discuss the post-Nizami execution situation.

The agency said Ozturk was expected to reach the Turkish capital on Thursday.

The Turkish foreign ministry, in a statement on Wednesday, condemned the Nizami execution that took place in Dhaka in the early minutes of Wednesday.

It said Turkey did ‘not believe that Nizami deserved such punishment.’

The Eurasian country also saw demonstrations against the hanging.

Nizami, who was the commander of the Al-Badr militia that helped the Pakistan army commit atrocities during Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971, was hanged for genocide and other war crimes.

Referring to Turkey’s repeated calls in the last three years for suspending the executions of the war crimes convicts, the statement said, such action would only intensify hatred and enmity among ‘Bangladeshi brothers’.

To a question on the statement, Shahriar Alam told , “Bangladesh and Turkey have a long friendship. No internal matter of any of the countries can harm these relations.”