THE recent address by the foreign minister in which he laid out Bangladesh's foreign policy imperatives was doubtless intended to reassure the public that the ministry has a good grasp of its responsibilities and to project its vision for the future. However, regrettably, due to the vacuity of the minister's words and the gap between them and his record in office, it has had the opposite effect.

We are glad that the foreign minister has taken the time to outline Bangladesh's foreign policy priorities. However, we would have preferred it if, instead of blandly restating the obvious, he would have been able to point to some successes in the areas that he outlined. Aspirations are all very well, but one would have hoped that after three and a half years, the foreign ministry would have more to show for itself than mere aspirations.

The foreign minister has mentioned economic touchstones such as manpower, ICT, and expanding exports. But the ministry has achieved nothing in its promotion of such measures during his tenure. Such successes as there have been can be attributed to the efforts of the private sector, not the government.

Similarly, fine words about cooperation and multi-lateral engagement is belied by Bangladesh's recalcitrance on Bimst-ec, our invisibility in other multilateral groupings, and a deterioration in key bilateral relations. And when it comes to repairing our image overseas, more is needed then the denials and accusations that have from time to time issued ritualis-tically from the foreign ministry.

The fact is that for the past three and a half years the nation's foreign policy has been adrift. It has appeared ad hoc at best, and completely rudderless at worst. Nor are we the only ones to have noticed this. Not long ago the cabinet even expressed dissatisfaction with the apparent directionless nature of our foreign policy. In addition, morale within the foreign office is also at rock bottom due to excessive politicisation and absence of a clear career path for officials.

What we are looking for in the foreign minister are coherent and well thought out policies and concrete achievements. Mere lip service to what the nation's foreign policy objectives should be are simply not enough. The irony is that the minister's empty words were delivered to a group who had just completed a certificate course on "Diplomacy, International Relations, and Foreign Policy." The listeners would have done well to take the minister's record as a case study in what not to do.

There seems to be strikingly little correlation between the foreign minister's handsome words and his actions. No one doubts that Bangladesh needs to improve its image in the world or consolidate existing relationships with traditional friends or to look for new allies among the emerging powers, but the question we would like to ask is: what does this mean in practice, and what has the minister actually done in furtherance of these goals?