Rear Admiral (Retd) Md Khurshed Alam has resigned as secretary of the Maritime Affairs Unit at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A senior official at the ministry told Dhaka Tribune that Khurshed tendered his resignation on Sunday on personal grounds.
This follows the recalling of ambassadors and high commissioners appointed by the Awami League government in different countries.
Khurshed Alam was one of the longest-serving contractual officers in the Foreign Ministry.
He was first appointed to the ministry's maritime wing in 2009 after retiring from the navy as a commodore.
In a rare move, he was also retroactively promoted to rear admiral.
His latest contract was scheduled to end in January as he had gotten a two-year extension in January 2023.
In his long tenure, he headed the legal team in the "Dispute concerning the delimitation of the maritime boundary between Bangladesh and Myanmar" and the "Bay of Bengal Maritime Boundary Arbitration between Bangladesh and India" in the Peace Palace in The Hague.
Bangladesh won both the cases.
He was also head of the Bangladesh continental shelf technical team, entrusted with preparations, documentation, the carrying out of a seismic survey in the Bay of Bengal, and final submission and presentation to the commission on the limits of the continentals’ shelf of the United Nations.
The Foreign Ministry established a separate Maritime Affairs Unit with him as its chief.
The ministry also awarded him the Bangabandhu Medal for Diplomatic Excellence 2020 for his role in the peaceful solution to maritime disputes with the neighbouring countries.
