Chinese FM’s upcoming Dhaka visit part of regular contacts: FS

Foreign secretary Masud Bin Momen on Sunday said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s planned visit to Bangladesh next week is part of their “regular contacts.”

“It can’t be said (there’s) urgency (from the Chinese side). Since he will be visiting this region, he expressed desire to come here if we can give him time. We are looking into the timings,” he said when a reporter wanted to know why so urgency from the Chinese side.

In January 2017, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi had an hour-long stopover in Dhaka.

“This time, he will be coming for a longer period,” said the foreign secretary.

Talking to a small group of reporters at his office on Sunday, the foreign secretary said the two countries will discuss ways to strengthen the relations during the visit.

He said the Rohingya issue might also come up for discussion as the Chinese foreign minister was part of trilateral meetings in the past on Rohingya repatriation.

Responding to a question, the foreign secretary said there are four-five MoUs in the pipeline which are yet to be finalized.  

Foreign minister AK Abdul Momen is now visiting New York to attend an event on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and he will go to Cambodia to attend the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting on August 5-6.He is expected to return home on August 6 evening.

The Chinese foreign minister is likely to meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina apart from a bilateral meeting with his Bangladesh counterpart Momen to discuss bilateral, regional and global issues.

Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming met Momen last week at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and discussed various issues of mutual interest including the proposed visit of the Chinese foreign minister.

Momen told reporters on Friday said he will be happy to receive Wang noting that the visit has been finalised.

"The Chinese Foreign Minister is a very respectable man, very close to me. He will come here. I said that the Chinese foreign minister will come to my city and I will not receive him or I will not be able to meet him, it does not look good," he told reporters expressing displeasure over a section of media reports quoting him.

Wang is a member of the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, State Councilor and a member of the Leading CPC Members Group of the State Council, reports UNB.