United News of Bangladesh

Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus is scheduled to pay an official visit to the United Kingdom (UK) shortly after Eid-ul-Azha as the two countries are putting in efforts to refresh their bonds and work ever more closely together on economic, trade and investment fronts. The visit is likely to take place from June 9-13, a senior official told UNB on Tuesday, adding that the both sides are working on finalising the agenda of the visit. The Chief Adviser is likely to hold talks with King Charles and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer during the planned visit. The recovery of laundered money and assets abroad will also be there as an important issue to be discussed during the visit. Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur, while briefing reporters at the Foreign Service Academy on Monday said the Chief Adviser will put in his efforts (recovery of stolen money, assets abroad ) as he is going to London. Prof Yunus for maintaining stable security situation, appreciates security forces The government says the previous regime enabled the laundering of an estimated $16 billion annually. The Chief Adviser, earlier, sought support from the British government through its envoy in Dhaka to track and get back the money laundered to the UK allegedly by the people linked to the Sheikh Hasina-led previous government. Senior officials from the Bangladesh Bank and Anti-Corruption Commission will also accompany the Chief Adviser during the visit to discuss ways to repatriate the laundered money. The Chief Adviser recently visited China and will pay an official visit to Japan later this month.

Bangladesh and the United Kingdom will hold the fourth Strategic Dialogue in London on Thursday to review all aspects of the relations between the two countries with a focus on post-Brexit and post-Covid new strategic partnership. The two sides will discuss the entire gamut of bilateral relations covering political relations, economic and development partnership, security and defence cooperation, and exchanges on current global issues including Afghanistan and Rohingya crisis. Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen will lead the Bangladesh delegation while Sir Philip Robert Barton KCMG OBE, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) will lead the UK side at the dialogue, said an official. The Bangladesh-UK Strategic Dialogue was launched in Dhaka in 2017 while the second Strategic Dialogue took place at the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office in March 2018 and the third one was held in Dhaka on April 24, 2019. The issues related to joint celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, trade and investment, climate change (COP26), education and skills, good governance, human rights and migration issues will also be discussed. Bangladesh is likely to reiterate its call to review the travel restrictions on Bangladesh and remove it from the red-list. Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen already raised the issue during a recent virtual meeting with his British counterpart Dominic Raab. “Given Bangladesh's robust vaccine roll-out and significant reductions in Covid infection to 9.82% and sufferings of more than 7000 British-Bangladeshis currently stranded in Bangladesh, the UK should consider removing Bangladesh from the Covid red-list countries," Dr Momen said. However, such decisions are reviewed by the Public Health Experts on a regular basis, according to the UK government. "I would like to assure that given the long standing friendship between our two countries, and based on more frequent genomic sequencing data-uploading by Bangladesh, the  British Government will review Bangladesh red list," Raab was quoted as saying.