Bangladesh president dissolves parliament after PM flees country
Bangladesh’s president dissolved parliament on Tuesday, clearing the way for an interim government and new elections, a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled following a violent crackdown on a student-led protests.
President Mohammed Shahabuddin’s office also announced that the leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Begum Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister who had feuded with Hasina for decades, had been freed from house arrest.
The student movement rose out of demonstrations against public sector job quotas for families of veterans of Bangladesh’s 1971 independence war, seen by critics as a means to reserve jobs for allies of the ruling party. About 300 people were killed and thousands injured in violence that ripped through the country since July.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Nasser Kanaani in a statement expressed hope for a quick restoration of stability in the country. He also expressed sympathy with the families of the victims who lost their lives during the protests.