Home Minister to Skip BIMSTEC Meeting in Delhi
Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed will not attend the first formal meeting of BIMSTEC home ministers in New Delhi. The regional meeting, hosted by the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), is scheduled to begin on Tuesday.
Instead, a four-member Bangladeshi delegation will be led by Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs Manzur Morshed Chowdhury.
Diplomatic sources said home ministers and state ministers from the other six member countries, except Bangladesh, would attend the meeting. Senior officials from the member states’ home ministries held their first meeting on October 12, a day before the ministerial meeting.
Indian Home Minister Amit Shah will chair the ministerial meeting, while Indian Home Secretary Govind Mohan will chair the meeting of senior officials.
The participating officials are expected to include Bhutanese Home Minister Lungten Dorji, Myanmar’s Home Minister General Ko Ko Oo, Nepal’s Home Minister Sudan Gurung, Sri Lankan Home Minister Chandana Abeyratne and Thai Deputy Minister of Interior Songsak Thongsri.
Combating regional terrorism and cross-border crime will be the top priorities. The meeting will focus on strengthening coordination among member states’ security agencies to combat human trafficking, the illicit trade in drugs and chemicals, money laundering and terrorist financing.
According to a statement from India’s Ministry of External Affairs, recommendations from the 11th meeting of the BIMSTEC Joint Working Group on Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime, held in Delhi on September 28–29, will be presented for approval at the ministerial meeting.
BIMSTEC was established on June 6, 1997, with the adoption of the Bangkok Declaration to promote cooperation between South and Southeast Asia. Its seven members are Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan. The organisation’s secretariat is based in Dhaka. Bangladesh assumed the BIMSTEC chairmanship in April 2025.
Earlier, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman skipped the outreach session of the BRICS summit held in Delhi in September. India had invited him in his capacity as the current chair of BIMSTEC. However, the Bangladesh government said the invitation was extended to him as BIMSTEC chair, not as the prime minister of Bangladesh.
