Govt requests South Africa to extradite Maulana Tajuddin

State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam made the request at a meeting held yesterday in Bali with South African Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Nomaindiya Mfeketo. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the 16th Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) council where the state minister was leading a Bangladesh delegation, said a press statement issued by the Foreign Affairs Ministry yesterday. In reply to the request, the South African deputy minister reiterated her government’s willingness to cooperate in this regard. The state minister also requested his counterpart to actively consider opening a South African resident diplomatic mission in Dhaka at the earliest to facilitate people-to-people exchange. Both the leaders agreed on further strengthening and consolidating the ties between the two countries in diverse fields. Shahriar Alam also met with Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on the sidelines of IORA council and called on her government to remove air-cargo restrictions in full. He also notified Julie that the Bangladesh government as doing everything to secure the country, its economy and its guests from act of terrors. The Australian foreign minister appreciated the measures that the Government of Bangladesh have taken to enhance the security situation and mentioned that her government was also following on it. The IORA council of ministers was hosted by the Government of Indonesia, the current chair of the association. The meeting was attended by delegations of ministerial and state ministerial levels from the association’s 21 member states which included Australia, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore, UAE and Comoros, among others. IORA is scheduled to hold its first ever IORA Leaders’ Summit with heads of governments on March 7 next year in Jakarta to mark the association’s 20th anniversary. At the Summit, leaders of IORA’s member states are expected to sign the IORA Concord along with an action plan to implement the decisions of the concord.