Bangladesh on Monday requested Canada for “preferential treatment” in migration for its citizens.
Foreign Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud made the request when Canadian High Commissioner Dr Lilly Nicholls paid a courtesy call to him at his office.
Talking to the reporters after the meeting the foreign minister said that he also requested Canada to send back Noor Chowdhury, the convicted killer of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, to Bangladesh.
“The high commissioner said that she would inform her government about the request,” the minister said when asked about the response of the high commissioner.
“The high commissioner is not the authority to decide but she will communicate Dhaka’s request with her government,” he said.
On the preferential treatment for migration, the foreign minister particularly mentioned the agriculture sector.
He said he also discussed issues related to the expansion of bilateral trade and the Rohingya crisis with the high commissioner.
“The Canadian government is eager to work with the new government. And that is why the Canadian high commissioner paid a courtesy call,” the foreign minister said.
“We have excellent relations with Canada. We have multiple engagements with Canada. They (Canada) want to widen and expand these engagements,” he said.
The high commissioner told the reporters that they had a “productive first discussion” with the new foreign minister.
"We have long-standing multifaceted relations, which have many dimensions," she said, adding that they had discussed people-to-people links, growing trade and commercial relationships, among others.
During the meeting, she said they also discussed the importance of media freedom, civil society, and alternative voices in a healthy democracy.
The high commissioner reiterated Canada’s continued commitment to responding to the Rohingya crisis.
