JS body to visit four new diplomatic missions

The members of a parliamentary body will visit Portugal, Greece, Mauritius and Italy towards the end of this month to get a firsthand experience on the activities of Bangladesh's new embassies in those countries.
The members of the parliamentary standing committee on the foreign affairs are likely to spend around nine days in the four countries to see how the new diplomatic missions are doing.
Before that visit, they will inspect Rohingya refugee camps at Cox's Bazar for two days from August 17 to witness the problems created by the Myanmar refugees for Bangladesh.
These decisions were taken at a meeting of the parliamentary committee at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban yesterday with ruling Awami League lawmaker Nilufer Zafarullah in the chair.
This parliamentary body is comprised of 10 MPs with a lone member from main opposition BNP.
Talking to The Daily Star, Nilufer said the government had opened new diplomatic missions in the four countries. “And we want to go there to see how the embassy staff are working to address Bangladeshi workers' problems in those countries.”
She added that they also wanted to witness how Bangladeshis were living in those countries. On return, they will submit recommendations to the government about how Bangladeshi workers can avail better services from the four new embassies, she said.
Asked about the committee members' visit to Rohingya refugee camps at Ukhiya and Teknaf in Cox's Bazar, the committee chief said they [Rohingya] were creating multifarious problems for this country. “That's why we want to visit those places to see the whole situation.”
Emaj Uddin Pramanik, an AL MP and a member of the JS body, said Rohingyas were a burden for Bangladesh in many ways, as many of them were involved in crimes in Cox's Bazar.
“Many Rohingyas have also earned Bangladesh a bad name abroad, especially in the Middle East, who had gone there with Bangladeshi visas,” Pramanik said.
“Our aim to visit Cox's Bazar is to get a clear picture of the whole issue. The committee will submit recommendations to the government about how to tackle these problems.”