DHAKA, Nov 29 (AFP) - The leaders of four Bangladeshi opposition parties will hold their first-ever joint talks here on Tuesday with the aim of launching a new drive to force the government to step down, sources close to them said Monday.
The sources said the leaders would issue a joint appeal for fresh anti-government strikes from mid-January as well as pledging other action.
But they will stop short of issuing an ultimatum to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed to resign.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) presidium member and former information minister Shamsul Islam said "there is no point for ultimatum as the campaign to oust the government is already under way."
The four leaders who will meet Tuesday are BNP chief Khaleda Zia; former military dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who represents one faction of the Jatiya Party; Golam Azam of the Jamaat-e-Islami party; and Moulana Azizul Huq of the Islami Oikkya Jote, a conglomerate of several small Muslim groups.
The talks are to take place in Zia's residence.
Elections are not scheduled before 2001.
Sheikh Hasina, elected for a five-year term in 1996, has repeatedly offered talks with Zia but these offers have been repeatedly spurned.
On Sunday, she blasted Zia for threatening to call strikes during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan saying: "I like to ask whether she (Zia) is stepping in the role of kafir (non-believer) by declaring war against the people," at that time.
She was also critical of strikes that have forced rescheduling of annual school tests.
The Bhorer Kagoj daily, quoting an unidentified BNP policymaker, said three demands by BNP allies - jointly contesting the next general elections, formation of a coalition government and Islamic ideals - were eventually not included in the declaration.
A senior official with the ruling Awami League said: "The opposition has no issue to draw people into their campaign."
The opposition has staged repeated protests against the government, including 25 strikes in the last 11 months. More are likely in December before the start of Ramadan.
Some 15 people have been killed in bomb blasts linked to the political tensions, which are now seen as harming the country's economic prospects.
Bangladesh President Shahabuddin Ahmed and business leaders have appealed to Hasina and Zia to end their feud and put an end to the sequence of damaging strikes.
