Bangladesh to offer Maldives help with diplomacy

The Maldives may soon be invited to use Bangladeshi diplomatic missions abroad to negotiate with the international community, it emerged this week.

Bangladeshi Foreign Secretary, Mijarul Quayes, is drafting a conceptual plan that will allow the Maldives to open ‘outlets’ within Bangladeshi diplomatic through which to conduct its international relations, according to a report by the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).

The Maldives has only 13 missions abroad and opening ‘Maldivian outlets’ within Bangladeshi missions would help the island nation, the APP report said.

Bangladesh has 60 diplomatic missions worldwide. Offering the Maldives office space within their missions is part of Quayes’s plan envisaging a “new role for Bangladesh regarding the Maldives”.