Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu will visit Bangladesh soon to inaugurate the new chancery building of his country’s mission in the capital.
“The new chancery building of Turkish mission here has been completed [constructed] and the Turkish foreign minister will be here soon to inaugurate it,” Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said on Wednesday.
Bangladesh also built a new chancery complex for its mission in Turkey which was virtually inaugurated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from Dhaka, while Bangladesh foreign minister along with his Turkish counterpart were present physically at the ceremony in Ankara on September 14.
Referring to his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara, Momen reiterated his expectation that Erdogan would visit Dhaka in person next year either to attend the birth centenary celebration of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman or to join the D-8 summit here, if the pandemic situation improves.
The foreign minister made the remarks to reporters after receiving a special gift of medical equipment sent by the Turkish president through Mustafa Osman Turan, its ambassador to Bangladesh.
Earlier, Turkey had sent medical supplies four times to Bangladesh for helping Bangladesh combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Dr Momen said Turkey wants to raise bilateral trade volume with Bangladesh to more than two billion US dollars from the current below one billion US dollars annually.
“Turkish president is committed to enhancing ties with Bangladesh and told me [in Ankara] that our [bilateral] trade should exceed $2 billion,” he said.
Dr Momen also said the Turkish president had showed his firm commitment to increase ties between Bangladesh and Turkey more and more in the days to come.
On September 16, Bangladesh foreign minister called on Turkish president in Ankara and discussed various issues of mutual interest, including the D-8 summit, Rohingya crisis, and trade cooperation.
Erdoğan had assured Dhaka that Ankara would be beside Bangladesh in all fronts, including bilateral and multilateral, to resolve the ongoing Rohingya crisis.
He also gave some specific proposals to increase trade cooperation between Bangladesh and Turkey through easing duties on export-import of different products including textile and medicine.
Dhaka is set to host the D-8 summit — that was supposed to be held in May this year but was delayed due to the Covid-19 — early next year depending on the pandemic situation.
Bangladesh will take over as the next chair of the D-8 from current chair Turkey through the Dhaka D-8 summit.