Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono arrives here on Monday to discuss bilateral issues with a greater focus on Rohingya crisis and further strengthen the ties with Bangladesh on all fronts.
There will be only one working day as Minister Kono will be leaving Dhaka early Wednesday, said a senior official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday.
Kono will visit Cox’s Bazar Rohingya camp on Tuesday to see the situation on the ground and have a brief dialogue with Rohingya representatives in a transit camp to understand their perspective as a whole.
After wrapping up his Rohingya camp visit, the Japanese Foreign Minister will have a bilateral meeting with his Bangladesh counterpart Dr AK Abdul Momen at a state guesthouse here on Tuesday evening.
“Bilateral issues concerning the entire gamut of our relations will be discussed at the meeting,” the official told UNB adding that regional and global issues will also be discussed.
He will also visit Bangabandhu Memorial Museum in the city to pay tributes to Father of the Nation Bagabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The Foreign Minister will host dinner in hour of his Japanese counterpart.
Officials said this will be a Rohingya-focused visit as there are global efforts to expedite the repatriation process of the displaced people to Myanmar.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe showed his deep respect for the government of Bangladesh for generously accepting and protecting the Rohingyas on humanitarian ground and the two countries share the importance of stability in Cox’s Bazar from the perspective of enhancing connectivity and securing regional stability, another official said.
On May 29, Prime Minister Abe held a 50-minute meeting with his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina in Japan, and discussed ways to find a “durable and early solution” to the Rohingya crisis.
Bangladesh is now hosting over 1.2 million Rohingyas and most of them entered the country since August 25, 2017.
Prime Minister Abe had expressed his intention to continue extending necessary support to the government of Bangladesh with a view to realising the early repatriation of Rohingyas to their place of origin in Rakhine State in a safe, voluntary and dignified manner.
Bangladesh and Myanmar signed the repatriation deal on November 23, 2017.
On January 16, 2018 Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a document on “Physical Arrangement”, which was supposed to facilitate the return of Rohingyas to their homeland.
The “Physical Arrangement” stipulates that the repatriation will be completed preferably within two years from the start of repatriation.
The first batch of Rohingyas was scheduled to return on November 15 last year but it was halted amid unwillingness of Rohingyas to return for lack of a congenial environment in Rakhine.
