Bangladesh, UK sign SOPs on Returns

British Minister for Countering Illegal Migration James Tomlinson-Mynors KC, and Bangladesh High Commissioner in London Saida Muna Tasneem opened the JWG meeting and witnessed the signing of the SOPs between the two countries, according to a message received here today.
The Bangladesh-UK SOPs on Returns is a successor to the earlier signed Bangladesh-EU SOPs of 2017, the procedure that used to be followed before UK's exit from the EU for returning Bangladeshi over stayers from the UK, reports BSS.
Bangladesh envoy Tasneem in her opening statement recalled the genesis of the value-driven diplomatic relations between the two Commonwealth countries based on the historic friendship between Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and UK's Conservative Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath.
Reaffirming Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's zero tolerance stance against irregular migration, the High Commissioner said, "Bangladesh High Commission London in collaboration with UK Home Office has been returning certain numbers of undocumented Bangladeshis for more than a decade."
She said the number of undocumented Bangladeshis in the UK is minimal at thismoment, and the Bangladesh Home Office would work closely with the BritishHome Office with support from the High Commission.
"The good news is that Bangladesh is not even within the top ten countries interms of numbers of undocumented nationals in the UK, and yet we needed toformalize this MoU with the post-Brexit UK," the envoy said.
Apart from signing of the SOPs, the Joint Working Group on Home Affairsdiscussed opportunities of orderly migration including skilled and hightalent migration from Bangladesh to the UK, opened avenues for discussion onmutual legal assistance, extradition, transnational crimes and counteringterrorism and extremism, as well as capacity building of Bangladesh's lawenforcement agencies.
Bangladesh home ministry's additional secretary Khairul Kabir Menon andDirector General of the UK's Immigration Enforcement, Home office Bas Javidled their respective sides.
Senior representatives from the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry ofForeign Bangladesh, Bangladesh Police and the Special Branch, as well asrepresentatives from Bangladesh High Commission London participated at the meeting.