Dhaka, 9 May 2020:

H E Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Republic of Turkey has pledged to raise the Rohingya issue in the next UN Security Council (UNSC) meeting during a telephonic conversation today with H E Dr. A.K Abdul Momen, Hon’ble Foreign Minister of Bangladesh. Moreover, Turkey has assured to continue its assistance and cooperation for facilitating the repatriation process of the stranded Rohingya community in Bangladesh to their homeland.

Dr. Momen requested his counterpart in Turkey to establish a D-8 working group in a bid to bolster the economic cooperation between the D8 member states in post COVID-19 economic landscape. In addition, Dr. Momen urged his counterpart to convene a virtual D8 Commissioners’ meeting- in its capacity of current chairmanship- to streamline the preparation for the forthcoming 10th D-8 Summit to be hosted by Dhaka.

Foreign Minister solicited Turkish support to avail necessary assistance from pledged US$7 trillion package for the least developed countries created by G20 countries. During his conversation, Dr. Momen firmly requested Turkey to take tangible measures to create Covid-19 Recovery and Response Fund as proposed by him in the recently held OIC Executive Committee Meeting at the level of Foreign Ministers. He highlighted the financial adversaries and food crisis faced by migrant workers of Bangladesh amidst this pandemic. Dr. Momen ardently expected cooperation from Turkey on the issue of job retention of migrant workers and requested Turkey to extend their support to ensure a financial assistance- equivalent to at least six months salaries- from the host countries in case of laying migrant workers off. Furthermore, Dr. Momen requested his counterpart to extend cooperation to forestall order cancellation in RMG sector.

The Turkish Foreign Minister accepted Bangladesh’s proposal to work jointly on the issue of food security, and both the countries strongly expressed their interest to expand the trade volume to tackle the economic devastation caused by this pandemic.

The Turkish Foreign Minister also committed to provide One hundred thousand surgical masks and sufficient number of N-95 masks to Bangladesh as a friendly gesture.