Donald Lu, the US assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, will land in the capital on Tuesday for a two-day visit aimed at enhancing bilateral ties rather than “giving lectures on human rights issues.”

The senior US diplomat kick-started an Indo-Pacific tour India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh on 10 May, and Dhaka would be the last leg of this mission ending on 15 May.

“His trip will strengthen bilateral cooperation with each country (India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh) and demonstrate US support for a free, open, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region,” the US State Department has already said.

Lu is expected to meet Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen, Prime Minister's Private Industry and Investment Adviser Salman F Rahman, and civil society leaders to discuss potential areas of bilateral cooperation, including the climate crisis and economic ties.

At the beginning of Lu’s Indo-Pacific tour, one senior foreign ministry official told reporters that security issues would also be discussed during the two-day visit in Dhaka.

The US diplomat’s current visit would be noticeably different from his earlier ones where he particularly focused on Bangladesh’s supposedly deteriorating human rights situation.

However, now after general elections, a new stable government has been formed making Washington eager to work with it, the foreign ministry official noted.

Foreign relation analysts believe that the US is becoming increasingly resolved to build ties with Bangladesh at almost all possible costs due to the South Asian country’s geophysical significance for Washington’s maritime and military rivalry with China.