Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed will not attend the first-ever meeting of home ministers from the seven-member Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Bimstec) in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Instead, a Bangladesh delegation led by Home Affairs Senior Secretary Manzur Morshed Chowdhury will attend the meeting, according to a report by the Bangla Tribune.
The two-day meeting is set to begin on Monday with senior officials from the home ministries of Bimstec member states. Home ministers and state ministers from the member countries will meet the following day, nearly three decades after the regional bloc was established.
The Bangladesh delegation will additionally include AKM Shahidul Karim, the additional secretary for Saarc, Bimstec, and other priority issues at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, along with Rebecca Khan, who serves as joint secretary at the Ministry of Home Affairs.
In September, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman also skipped the outreach session of the BRICS summit in New Delhi. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had invited him to the session in his capacity as Bimstec chair.
Bangladesh assumed the Bimstec chairmanship in April 2025.
Officials stated that the inaugural meeting of home ministers from the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) will review regional security cooperation and explore ways to expand it within the regional grouping.
The meeting will bring together ministers and representatives from the seven BIMSTEC member states, which comprise Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
Bhutan’s home minister, Myanmar’s union minister for Home Affairs, Nepal’s home minister, Sri Lanka’s minister for Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs, and Thailand’s deputy secretary-general of the National Security Council are expected to attend the event, an official told UNB.
The meeting comes as BIMSTEC seeks to strengthen regional cooperation in law enforcement, intelligence sharing and security.
At the fourth BIMSTEC Summit, held in Kathmandu on August 30-31, 2018, the leaders expressed their determination to strengthen cooperation and coordination among law enforcement, intelligence and security agencies.
They also decided to hold meetings of BIMSTEC Home Ministers while continuing meetings of BIMSTEC National Security Chiefs to promote cooperation and coordination in combating terrorism and transnational crime.
The BIMSTEC home ministers’ meeting will be supported by a senior officials’ Meeting of home and interior ministries.
Why it matters
The decision by Bangladesh's Home Minister to skip the inaugural BIMSTEC meeting while sending a senior bureaucrat shapes regional diplomatic engagement and security cooperation.