Foreign Minister Dr. Hasan Mahmud expressed hope that the kind of situation that was created in the past on the Myanmar border will not arise again.
At the same time, he said, it is not possible for us to accept or shelter any Rohingya. We have sheltered more than 12 lakh Rohingyas in our country. 35 thousand new Rohingya children are born every year, that is, this number is increasing every year.
On Friday (February 23), Chattogram city's CRB headquarter, Chattogram City Corporation organized the Amar Ekushe book fair at the end of the chief guest's speech at the 'Mahan Ekushe Smark Sammanna Padak'.
The foreign minister said that we are working on how to send back the Rohingyas who have been given shelter for humanitarian reasons. He requested the assistance of all countries including the United States, to apply international pressure on the Myanmar government to send back the Rohingyas. That is why we have discussed it with various countries including India, USA and China.
Myanmar's junta government has recently announced that they will launch an operation again, many Rohingyas are staying at the border, how will the government handle this situation? Dr. Hasan Mahmud said, you know that a few days ago our Prime Minister went to the Security Conference in Munich, there we also discussed the issue of Rohingya repatriation with various heads of state and government. The arrival of the high-level delegation from the United States is instrumental in deepening the relationship between our two countries. We will definitely discuss the issue of Rohingya repatriation there.
He said conducting operations in Rakhine is their internal matter, but because of that, we already have tensions here and mortar shells from there have landed in our country, killing two people. As many as 330 members of their army and security forces came to our country, they took them back again. We protested by calling the Myanmar ambassador to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So we hope that the kind of situation that has arisen in the past will not arise again.
Pointing to BNP leader Nazrul Islam Khan’s view that there must be a change in the government in the movement to restore democracy - In this regard, the foreign minister said that if the government is to be changed, the BNP will have to wait until the 29th election, then the people will form the government. They have failed in all the tests that BNP has conducted for so long. Now let them experiment again, study more and then we'll see what they do. Of course, the government will not stop anyone from carrying out a systematic movement. But the violence that BNP has done in the name of anarchy in the past will not be allowed to continue.
In the speech as the chief guest at the Ekushey award ceremony of the book fair, Dr. Hasan Mahmud said, after the founding of the Chhatra League by the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, one of the 10 points given by the Chhatra League was that Bengali should be made the state language and based on those 10 points, the student leaders including the young leader Sheikh Mujib toured the districts. Did these histories remain undiscovered, today they are slowly unfolding. Ever since the creation of Pakistan, Bangabandhu had realized that the liberation of the Bengali nation was not inherent in the Pakistani state system.
Emphasizing the internationalization of the Chattogram Book Fair, the foreign minister said, Dhaka and West Bengal's Kolkata, Agartala, Assam and other publishers should be invited, then the fair will be internationalized. When a book is published in English in England, it is also published in New York, Australia and New Zealand. But that doesn't happen in our country. If a book is published in Kolkata, it is not simultaneously published in Dhaka or Chattogram.
Mayor of Chattogram City Corporation Bir Muktijoddha Rezaul Karim Chowdhury spoke at the event, Convener Councilor of Amar Ekushe Book Fair Celebration Parishad. Dr. Nisar Uddin Ahmed Manju. Sheikh Mohammad Touhidul Islam, Chief Executive Officer of City Corporation gave the welcome speech. Among the awardees, Shishir Dutta, who received an award in drama and Absar Habib, who received an award in poetry, spoke expressing their feelings.
This time, Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) Ekushey got a commemorative medal and literary award: Shaheed Saifuddin Khaled Chowdhury (posthumously) in the liberation war and freedom movement, Md. Nasiruddin for industrial development and social service(posthumous), Professor Dr. Md. Gofaranul Haque in Medical service, Shishir Dutta in drama, Shreyasi Roy in culture, Professor Pradeep Bhattacharya in education, Suprabhat Bangladesh editor Rusho Mahmud in development and promotion of newspaper industry, Jaseem Chowdhury Sabuj in journalism, Zakir Hossain Lulu in sports, Shaibal Chowdhury in short film production and research, in folklore and research Shamsul Arefin, in Essay Shamsuddin Shishir, in Poetry Absar Habib and Bhagyadhan Barua, in Children literature Arun Shil and Shibu Kanti Das.