Dhaka: Deputy Secretary of State of United States James B. Steinberg arrives here on Thursday on a two-day visit. Appointed by President Obama, James B. Steinberg serves as the Principal Deputy to Foreign Secretary Hillary Clinton. He is the highest Obama Administration official to visit Bangladesh, said a US Embassy press release here at Dhaka on Sunday.

Deputy Secretary Steinberg will meet with government officials and other political figures, and business, civil society, and opinion leaders. He will discuss a range of bilateral and multilateral issues. This is his first visit to Bangladesh.

James B. Steinberg as Deputy Secretary of State, was confirmed by the Senate on January 28, 2009 and sworn in by the Secretary the next day. Prior to his appointment in the Obama Administration, Mr. Steinberg served as dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, a position he assumed on January 1, 2006. He is currently on leave from the LBJ School. He had previously served as the vice president and director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. (2001-2005), where he supervised a wide-ranging research program on U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Steinberg received his B.A. from Harvard in 1973 and J.D. from Yale Law School in 1978.

BDST: 1735, April 18, 2010

AKR/