Three career diplomats have been promoted to secretary status at the Foreign Ministry.
They are Bangladesh Ambassador to Japan Masud bin Momen, former additional secretary Mizanur Rahman and Bangladesh Ambassador to Singapore Mahbub Uz Zaman.
“They were promoted to the status of secretary on August 27,” said a senior official of the Foreign Ministry.
All of them belong to the BCS 1985 batch. With the promotions, the Foreign Ministry now has 13 secretary status diplomats including the foreign secretary.
According to rules two of them will be based at the headquarters including the foreign secretary and 11 will be posted at different missions at ambassador position.
Former foreign secretary Md Mijarul Quayes is now ambassador to Brazil. His batch mate Ismat Jahan is now ambassador at Brussels.
Their another batchmate Golam Mohammad, former envoy in Greece, has now been made OSD at the headquarters.
Current Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque’s batch mates Shamim Ahsan is currently posted in Geneva as envoy and Fazlul Karim as ambassador to China. Mohammad Abdul Hannan is the Bangladesh High Commissioner to England while Imtiaz Ahmed is the ambassador to Portugal.
Md Shahdat Hossain is Bangladesh Ambassador to Italy while Mosud Mannan is envoy to Uzbekistan. Mazeda Rafiqunessa is now a director general at the ministry. Her promotion is withheld because of allegations of irregularities as ambassador to Manila.
Promotion of Shamsul Haque has also been withheld on similar grounds.
Officials of the Foreign Ministry are promoted in line with the position of their merit list.
