The Cabinet has approved the proposal for signing two agreements with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait aimed at boosting cooperation on controlling crimes.
The agreement on security cooperation would be signed with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) while the agreement on military cooperation would be signed with Kuwait, said Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan after the cabinet meeting held on Monday at the secretariat's cabinet conference room.
The draft were tabled in the cabinet meeting respectively by the home ministry and defence ministry. The cabinet gave its nod finally to sign the agreements during its regular meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
He said: “The premier will visit UAE on October 27 on a three-day tour. The government has taken an initiative to sign two agreements with the country to ensure security and safety of the Bangladeshi workers working in the country.”
Some 1,000,000 Bangladeshi workers are now staying in UAE. The country recently stopped receiving Bangladeshi workers due to some security reasons.
“The government is expecting that the barriers will be remove after the premier's visit to the UAE and signing of the agreements,” added the cabinet secretary.
The cabinet secretary said according to the agreement on security cooperation with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the two countries would work to enhance cooperation on preventing crimes such as terrorism, use of arms and weaponry, human trafficking and money laundering.
Under the other agreement, titled as “agreement on transfer of sentenced persons,” the two countries would ensure exchange of convicted persons from their respective countries, if there is any such persons available, he added.
There are many Bangladeshi convicted workers in the UAE who have received the conviction due to being involved with crimes.
They will get the scope to return to Bangladesh after signing the agreement, said Musharraf.
He further said: “According to the agreement to be signed with Kuwait, the two countries will exchange military training, education, technology and logistics, cultural history and archives of military and information and communication technology.”