Closing borders to stop migration not a solution
Says State Minister Shahriar Alam
State Minister for Foreign Affairs M Shahriar Alam yesterday said closing borders to stop the flow of immigrants is not the solution to uphold sovereign authority of countries.
“We need to be more rational while dealing with international migration,” he said in his opening remarks at the “Regional Consultation of the Global Compact for Migration (GCM)” in a Dhaka hotel.
He also called for taking into account issues like climate change, identity politics, national populist measures and rapid technological progress.
“Bangladesh recognises that cross-border forced displacement caused by violence, extremism and ultra-nationalism compounds the task ahead of us,” he said.
Mentioning that since August 2017, around 1.1 million Rohingya people from Northern Rakhine State of Myanmar have sought refuge in Bangladesh, Shahriar said Dhaka has engaged its fullest strength to cope with the humanitarian needs, despite resource scarcity.
Besides providing possible humanitarian support to Rohingyas, Bangladesh bilaterally engaged with Myanmar to solve the problem, he said.
The state minister thanked the UN secretary general for appointing the permanent representatives of Bangladesh and Spain as co-facilitators to the intergovernmental consultations and negotiations to determine the modalities and organisational aspects of the International Migration Review Forum.
He hoped that the co-facilitators would be able to come up with concrete way outs for the implementation of 23 objectives outlined in the GCM.
State Minister for Expatriate’s Welfare and Overseas Employment Imran Ahmad and Permanent Representative of Spain to UN Agustín Santos Maraver spoke at the event among others.