Dhaka: Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Masood bin Momen on Sunday said the Rohingya crisis will be of utmost importance when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visits Bangladesh later this month. Russia is hoping to encourage Russia to play a more active role in finding a solution.
Lavrov is expected to address the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) Council of Ministers in Bangladesh on 24 November. Lavrov will meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen in Dhaka besides attending the meeting of the inter-governmental organisation.
The country of 165 million people looks forward to some promising developments in its energy cooperation with Russia and grain imports from that country.
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As Sheikh Hasina's government slows imports to preserve foreign exchange reserves, which are rapidly falling below $40 billion, Bangladesh's $416 billion economy faces severe power shortages and diesel shortages.
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The Rooppur nuclear power plant was built with Russian assistance, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina looks forward to its early implementation.
The armed conflict in Myanmar has spread to the South Asian nation, where nearly one million Rohingya, mostly Muslims, have been living since their resettlement in a country with a majority of Muslims. Rohingyas fled Myanmar during a war in 2018.
The Rohingya are not one of Myanmar's ethnic groups, according to junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, who claimed they became a population only after the country gained independence from Britain in 1948.