PM flies to Maldives Wednesday

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will leave for the Maldives on Wednesday, two days after celebrating the Eid-ul-Azha festival, to attend the summit of the eight-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.
Hasina will lead a 50-member delegation, including four of her family members, to the 17th Saarc summit to be held on November 10-11 in the picturesque Addu City and Fuvahmulah of the Maldives, an Indian Ocean island nation, foreign ministry officials said.
The delegation also includes Foreign Minister Dipu Moni and Ambassador-at-large Muhammad Ziauddin.
The Saarc comprises Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
The Summit's theme is “Building Bridges”. It represents a range of new diplomatic initiatives covering geo-physical regional connectivity to conscious nursing of political dialogue among the Saarc community to narrow down differences, said the officials.
They said the Saarc leaders will review the progress in the implementation of the decisions taken in earlier Summits. Poverty alleviation, economic cooperation, Saarc Development Fund, food security, connectivity, energy and climate change are some of the major issues for deliberation during the Summit.
Four regional agreements concerning Rapid Response to Natural Disasters, Seed Bank, Multilateral Recognition of Conformity Assessment and Implementation of Regional Standards are likely to be signed during the Summit, sources said.
The summit is also expected to adopt a separate Saarc Charter of Democracy, a move by Dhaka.
Turkey's application for an observer status in the Saarc will also be taken up during the Summit. Currently Saarc has nine observers, including the United States, the EU, China, South Korea, Japan, Iran and the UK.
Official engagement of the summit will begin tomorrow followed by joint secretary level meetings of the eight member states. Foreign secretaries of Saarc will meet on November 7-8 to finalise the agenda of the summit and the summit declaration. A meeting of the foreign ministers will be held on November 9, prior to the inauguration of the summit on November 10.
The Bangladesh prime minister will have a busy schedule during the summit.
On the sideline of the summit, Hasina will hold bilateral meetings with almost all the participating heads of state and government. She is scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed and Nepalese Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai on November 10.
According to the foreign ministry officials, Hasina will leave Dhaka by a special flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines at 12 noon Wednesday and land at Ibrahim Nasir International Airport in Male the same day. From there she will go to Addu.
Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed will receive the Bangladesh prime minister at Addu city. The PM will stay in Maldives luxury Shangri-La Villingili Resort during the summit.
Foreign Minister Dipu Moni, who is now in Saudi Arabia to perform hajj, will be leaving Riyadh for the Maldives on November 7 to lead the Bangladesh delegation to the 34th Session of the Saarc Council of Ministers to be held on November 9.
Similarly, Foreign Secretary Mijarul Quayes will lead the Bangladesh delegation to the 39th Session of the Saarc Standing Committee slated for November 7-8, Likewise, Director General (Saarc) Masud Mohammad Khandakar will lead Bangladesh delegation to the 42nd Session of the Programming Committee being held on today (Nov 6).
The Maldives is hosting a Saarc summit for the third time after playing host to the 1990 and 1997 summits.
The 16th Summit was held in April 2010 in Bhutan with Climate Change as its central subject of deliberations.