DHAKA: The Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Iyad Ameen Madani, will arrive in Dhaka early Sunday on a four-day official visit to Bangladesh.

During the visit, the Secretary General will hold meetings with Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali and the Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque at the Foreign Office on Sunday.

Foreign ministry, in a press release, confirmed the matter.

The Secretary General will lead a five-member delegation on his first visit to Bangladesh after taking office as the new Secretary General recently.

He is also expected to meet President Abdul Hamid, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid, apart from visiting some institutions.

The visit is aimed at deepening and widening the cooperation existing between Bangladesh and OIC.

Madani, a former Minister of Saudi Arabia, assumed office as the tenth Secretary General of OIC on January 1, 2014 after his election in the 12th OIC Summit held in Cairo of Egypt in February 2013.

Bangladesh is among the first few countries that the Secretary General decided to visit after taking over the responsibilities of the General Secretariat of OIC.

The OIC is the second largest international organization (after the UN family) that groups together 57 Muslim-majority countries spread over four Continents.

It was established through a decision of the Summit in Rabat, Kingdom of Morocco on September 25, 1969 in response to an act of criminal arson of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem of Palestine.

The Organization’s main objective is to protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony.

BDST: 2010 HRS, MAR 07, 2014