British High Commissioner to Bangladesh Ms. Sarah Cooke congratulated the Foreign Minister Dr. Hasan Mahmud, on his appointment as the Foreign Minister and handed over a felicitation message from the UK’s Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs the Rt Hon Lord Cameron addressed to the Foreign Minister, during the courtesy call today at the latter’s office.
The Foreign Minister termed the relations between the two Commonwealth nations as historic and stated that today’s vibrant Bangladesh-UK relations started their journey on 8 January 1972, when Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman first reached London on his way to independent Bangladesh from the captivity in Pakistan. He thanked the British Government for being one of our important development, trade, and investment partners, and underlined the need for further collaboration in trade and investment, general economic reform, ICT and cybersecurity, tackling climate-related challenges and the Rohingya issue.
The British High Commissioner lauded the spectacular socio-economic development of Bangladesh over the last decade and expressed satisfaction that bilateral relations between the two countries have been evolving from development-centric to strategic. She looked forward to strengthening bilateral ties in trade and investment, finance, climate change, migration, defense, cybersecurity, and aviation. The British High Commissioner assured the UK’s continued humanitarian assistance to the Rohingyas, temporarily sheltered in Bangladesh, and political support to the Rohingya crisis. Both sides also acknowledged that a large number of British-Bangladeshi Diaspora continue to remain an important force in the Bangladesh-UK bilateral relations.
The Foreign Minister and the British High Commissioner shared their views on wars and conflicts in different parts of the world, including in Ukraine, Gaza, and the Red Sea, and their resultant negative impacts on the economies of the two countries.