• Decision made due to security threats ahead of Feb 12 polls.
• Campaigning for Bangladesh elections begins Thursday (tomorrow).
• New Delhi says withdrawal move part of “internal readjustments”.
  

NEW DELHI: India will withdraw its diplomats’ families and dependents from Bangladesh in the face of security threats as tension rises ahead of a February 12 general election, an Indian official said on Wednesday.

Campaigning begins on Thursday for Bangladesh’s election, which has sparked protests and counter-protests.

Ties between the South Asian neighbours soured after former prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India in 2024, following deadly protests.

India’s withdrawal move was part of “internal readjustments”, the official said, without elaborating.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, pointed to Indian media reports of New Delhi’s decision. It was not immediately clear when the families would return.

The foreign ministries of India and Bangladesh did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In December, India summoned Bangladesh’s high commissioner, or ambassador to voice its concern over what it called a deteriorating security situation there, particularly threats targeting the Indian mission in the capital, Dhaka.

The interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has repeatedly sought Hasina’s extradition to Bangladesh, while rejecting New Delhi’s concerns over violence targeting members of the minority Hindu community.

Ties between Dhaka and New Delhi have remained strained since the Awami League government of then prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted following violent, student-led street protests in July and August 2024.

Recently, protests were held in Bangladesh over the killing of student leader Sharif Osman Hadi who was a vocal Indian critic and took part in 2024’s uprising.

His death set off violent protests with angry mobs torching several buildings, including two major newspapers deemed to favour India, as well as a prominent cultural institution.

Bangladesh police said the alleged killers, Faisal Karim Masud and Alamgir Sheikh, left Bangladesh through the Haluaghat border with India.

• Govts around world react cautiously to Donald Trump’s plan.
• Some experts raise concerns about “imperial” nature of board.
• Diplomats say plan could harm work of United Nations.
  

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday “you got to let the UN continue” when asked about his plans for a so-called “Board of Peace” that has alarmed international experts.

Governments around the world have reacted cautiously to Trump’s invitation to join that initiative that the US president says aims to resolve conflicts globally, a plan that diplomats said could harm the work of the United Nations.

“Might,” Trump said when asked by a reporter if he wanted the “Board of Peace to replace the UN.”

“The UN just hasn’t been very helpful. I am a big fan of the UN potential but it has never lived up to its potential,” Trump said in a briefing.

“I believe you got to let the UN continue because the potential is so great,” he added.

The White House on Friday named some individuals who will sit on the board, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, former British prime minister Tony Blair and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

A UN Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorised the so-called “Board of Peace” and countries working with it to establish an international stabilisation force in Gaza, where a fragile ceasefire began in October under a Trump plan on which Israel and Palestinian group Hamas had signed off.

Under Trump’s Gaza plan, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said the board would be expanded to tackle conflicts around the world.

Observers say such a board could undermine the United Nations. Many rights experts and advocates have also said that Trump overseeing a board to supervise a foreign territory’s affairs resembled a colonial structure, while Blair’s involvement has been criticised due to his role in the Iraq war and the history of British imperialism in the Middle East.

The ceasefire in Gaza reached under Trump’s plan has also been fragile. Over 460 Palestinians, including more than 100 children, and three Israeli soldiers have been reported killed since the truce began in October.

DAVOS: European leaders drew a clear line over Greenland on Tuesday, vowing an “unflinching” response to Washington’s threats even as US President Donald Trump said he was ready to hold a meeting in Davos about his plans to take the autonomous Danish territory.

Asked hours before he was to head to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, how far he would go, Trump replied only: “You’ll find out.”

“We have a lot of meetings scheduled on Greenland, and I think things are going to work out pretty well,” Trump told reporters about his Davos meetings.

Leaders at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss ski resort closed ranks against Trump’s increasingly aggressive America First agenda, while Greenland’s prime minister said his tiny population of 57,000 must be prepared for military force.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen led the European rejoinder, cautioning that Trump risked plunging US ties with the European Union into a “downward spiral”.

France’s Emmanuel Macron warned against US attempts to “subordinate Europe”, and blasted as “unacceptable” Trump’s threats to impose tariffs of up to 25 per cent on countries opposed to his Greenland plans.

Trump had earlier insisted Greenland was “imperative” for security. “There can be no going back – on that, everyone agrees!” he posted on his Truth Social platform.

The US president, who will address the annual gathering of global elites on Wednesday, has put the transatlantic alliance to the test with his demand to take over Greenland.

Europe is weighing countermeasures after he threatened levies on eight European countries, though Washington has said any retaliatory levies would be “unwise”.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told European countries “to keep the pressure and temperature low” with regards to threats of retaliatory tariffs, while the US trade envoy Jamieson Greer told journalists in Davos that it would “not be wise” for European nations to use its “bazooka” trade measures.

Von der Leyen branded the US tariffs a “mistake”, telling the meeting of world business and political leaders they could start a spiral that would only aid Europe’s adversaries.

“So our response will be unflinching, united and proportional,” she said.

Nato at stake

Trump has pressed on with his Greenland campaign on Truth Social, writing that he had a “very good” call with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte in which he agreed to meet with “various parties” in Davos.

Rutte’s predecessor Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned that the Republican’s Greenland gambit had ignited the biggest crisis in Nato’s history, and said the time for “flattering” the US leader was over.

“It is the future of Nato and the future of the world order that are at stake,” he told AFP in an interview at Davos.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen agreed, telling a press conference in Nuuk that while military force was “unlikely” it could not be ruled out.

“That’s why we must be ready for all possibilities, but let’s emphasise this: Greenland is part of Nato and, if there were to be an escalation, it would also have consequences for the rest of the world.”

Trump argues he wants to protect mineral-rich Greenland from perceived Russian and Chinese threats – although Washington already has a base there and security agreements through Nato, while analysts suggest Beijing is a small player in the region.

EU leaders will hold an emergency summit on Greenland in Brussels on Thursday.

‘Law of the jungle’

Other prominent foreign leaders addressing the WEF on Tuesday included Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, whose country has been locked in a trade war with Trump.

“A select few countries should not have privileges based on self-interest, and the world cannot revert to the law of the jungle where the strong prey on the weak,” He said, without naming names.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has sought to reduce his country’s reliance on the United States in its own tariffs feud with Trump, also voiced his support for Greenland at Davos.

Canada had benefited from an era of “American hegemony”, he said, but now had to pivot to defend the existing international order.

Other flashpoints on the WEF agenda include the crises in Venezuela, Gaza, Iran – and Ukraine.

Europe, which is ramping up defence spending to break its security reliance on the United States, still needs Washington’s help to end the Ukraine war and deter the looming Russian threat to its east.

But Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on Tuesday that he worried the furore over Greenland could divert attention, warning of a “loss of focus during a full-scale war”.

Macron, wearing sunglasses because of a broken blood vessel, sent a message to Trump to propose a G7 summit in Paris on Thursday on Greenland as well as Ukraine, with Copenhagen, Moscow and Kyiv attending on the sidelines.

But he later clarified to AFP that no such meeting was yet scheduled and Trump said that he wouldn’t join the meeting.

The Kremlin said Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev plans to meet members of the US delegation in Davos – the first to attend since Russians were excluded from the gathering following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.