'US-Bangladesh talks to facilitate future training'

 Dhaka, Sep 26 The defence dialogue between Bangladesh and the United States will establish future training plan for the next four-five years, says Deputy Commander of Army National Guard of US Army Pacific (USARPAC) Major General Joseph J Chaves.
"The purpose of the meeting is to establish future training plan so that we can continue to work together on disaster response and humanitarian assistance," he said in an exclusive interview with bdnews24.com.
The two-day dialogue will begin in Hawaii on Sep 26.
Major General Chaves, also stationed in Hawaii, came to Bangladesh to attend the Disaster Response Exercise & Exchange (DREE) programme, which was conducted in Dhaka by the USARPAC and the Armed Forces Division, in association with the US embassy.
"Right now we are looking at continuing the resiliency programme in Bangladesh for the next couple of years," he said.
Last year there were only table talks about DREE, but this year, there was real exercise on how to cope with a disaster like an earthquake, he said.
Chaves said there were discussions to expand the exercise, so that it became multinational exercise involving more regional partners.
"The more nations join the exercise, the better it is to prepare for the disaster response."
Peacekeeping
The US wants to learn the lesson that the Bangladesh peacekeepers learnt over the years, so that Washington can engage itself in peacekeeping operations, according to him.
"US has not been engaged in peacekeeping for long time as we had been involved in two wars – one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan," the Major General said.
"We have to be fully prepared in what we do. We have to be able to do combat, we have to be able to do disaster relief, and also in the future, the US would like to involve in peacekeeping operations."
About the Mil-Mill cooperation, he said they would have operational and tactical exercises in the future.
Joint exercise
Chaves said Bangladesh must have the response capacity to disaster and for that the most important thing was to conduct exercises before the event occurred.
"If you prepare yourself then you can tackle the disaster better and that's why we have exercises like DREE as often as we can.
"The Bangladesh Armed Forces have a reputation worldwide as one of the best to respond to natural disasters, and the US wants to share experiences so that they can do better," Chaves said.
"It's a collaborative process between the US and Bangladesh."