DHAKA: Bangladesh and Bulgaria have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Foreign Office Consultations (FOC) in a brief ceremony held at the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry in Sofia on July 30.
On behalf of Bangladesh, the MOU was inked by Bangladesh Ambassador to Turkey M Zulfiqur Rahman, who is also in charge of Bulgaria.
Angel Velitchkov, Deputy Foreign Minister of Bulgaria, signed the MOU on the Bulgarian side.
External Publicity Wing of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh issued a press release in this regard.
It said, “The MOU on FOC would now allow holding of regular consultations between Bangladesh and Bulgarian governments in all areas of mutual cooperation. This is the first instrument concluded between these two friendly countries to initiate institutional cooperation.”
The Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister, speaking at the ceremony, fondly recalled that Bulgaria had been among the first few countries that recognized independent Bangladesh in 1972.
He also mentioned about the recent re-invigoration of relations between the two countries, and referred, in this regard, to the meeting between the two Foreign Ministers in New Delhi at the sidelines of the ASEM Ministerial.
Velitchkov dwelt at length on the potentials that the two countries should work on in areas of trade, economic cooperation, cultural and technological cooperation, including in the field of agriculture.
Praising Bangladesh’s sustained economic growth at over 6 percent for the last few years, the Deputy Foreign Minister said that it was only natural for Bulgaria, as an EU member, to establish economic and commercial cooperation with a rising economy like Bangladesh.
In his brief remark at the signing ceremony, Ambassador M Zulfiqur Rahman reminisced with deep gratitude the invaluable support provided by the people and government of Bulgaria during Bangladesh's Liberation War in 1971.
He expressed the hope that the MOU would open a new vista in re-energizing Bangladesh-Bulgaria relations that reached its peak in Bangladesh’s post-independence period but waned after the heinous 1975 assassination of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
BDST: 1254 HRS, JUL 31, 2014
