Ambassador Masud Bin Momen took over as the new foreign secretary of Bangladesh on the New Year day and said celebrating 'Mujib Barsha' engaging all missions abroad and linking that with the country's graduation from the LDC would be his 'key focus' for 2020.
"We the foreign office and our missions abroad will work as a team," he said on Wednesday while sharing his plans with the members of the Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Bangladesh (DCAB) at his office.
President Raheed Ejaz and General Secretary Nurul Islam Hasib of the outgoing DCAB executive committee felicitated him with a flower bouquet on his assumption of new office. Masud is a career foreign service officer belonging to the 1985 batch of Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS). During his career, he served in stations like New York, Islamabad, New Delhi and Kathmandu in various capacities.
He served as the Ambassador of Bangladesh to Italy and Japan. Before becoming the Foreign Secretary, he was the Permanent Representative to the United Nations, New York. He shared his plans of how he will handle the Rohingya crisis, hold D-8 as well as BIMSTEC Summits, and manage the changing pattern of international diplomacy from multilateralism to bilateralism and unilateralism.
"We have lot of activities in this year. Our minister (foreign minister) in the morning called a meeting and gave us his instructions of how we can tackle all the challenges ahead," he said.
'Mujib Barsha' which is the celebration of birth centenary of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman will start from March 17. "We'll celebrate this across the world, particularly where we have missions, throughout the year. We'll have to expedite our preparations."
About the philosophy of the celebration, he said, "Bangabandhu had a dream and the Prime Minister is implementing that dream and Bangladesh has achieved that in the last 50 years and still we have targets". "So, first we will highlight the contribution of Bangabandhu in Mujib Barsha, and then we will gradually link it to the graduation of Bangladesh in 2021. So, there will be no disconnect in those two milestones," he said, adding that he'll give this instruction to all the missions so that they can design programmes keeping in mind the philosophy of the celebration.
"We want to have a team work between the ministry and the missions abroad. We all work for Bangladesh. We all work under the guidance of the prime minister," he said. As Bangladesh is graduating out of the LDC, the foreign secretary said, world wants 'more leadership from us'.
"They are looking at us. We have to see where we can take the leadership in this changed situation," he said, adding that the capacity of the foreign ministry needs to be strengthened. Rohingya will continue to remain as a challenge in this year, the foreign secretary said, adding that the dimension of the issue is expanding.
"Once we used to use bilateral tool, then multilateral and recently we are focusing on accountability and justice. But those are not mutually exclusive. It’s all complementary.” "Our target is to send them back voluntarily and with dignity," he said, adding that the "accountability and justice issue is important for us because it'll help in confidence building of Rohingyas".
"If Rohingyas see nothing happened after the atrocities, then they will not go back. They need confidence," he said, adding that Bangladesh is engaged with China as an extension of the bilateral engagement. On India and its recent development centering the citizenship exercise, NRC, he said the foreign ministry would be keeping eyes on the situation taking the official assurance from India into consideration.
New Delhi so far maintained that it’s an internal issue of India and there would be no impact on Bangladesh. The foreign secretary hoped that India will manage its initial instability peacefully. Replying to a question, he said there are challenges among the neighbours across the world - look at US, Canada or US, Mexico. "We have to work amid challenges," he said.
Referring to the telephonic conversation of the two leaders - Sheikh Hasina and Narendra Modi - on Wednesday, he said, the Bangladesh and India relations have reached to a new height. He also sought support of media during his assignment.
