Bangladesh welcomes Bhutanese PM with red carpet reception

A red carpet was rolled out to accord a warm reception to Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay on his arrival today for a two-day state visit, as Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus received him. The head of the interim government welcomed the Bhutanese premier at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) in the capital, Chief Adviser’s Deputy Press Secretary Mohammad Abul Kalam Azad Majumder said.

Earlier, a Drukair flight, carrying Tobgay and his entourage members, landed at the airport around 8:15am, he said. The two leaders held a brief meeting at the airport’s VVIP lounge, where Prime Minister Tobgay inquired about the damages and loss of lives caused by Friday’s earthquake and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims.

Following the meeting, Tobgay was escorted to a makeshift saluting dais, where he was accorded a 19-gun salute and a guard of honor. After the airport ceremony, the Bhutanese Prime Minister departed for the National Martyrs’ Memorial in Savar on the outskirts of the capital to pay homage to the martyrs of Bangladesh’s Liberation War.

He will pay tributes to the martyrs by placing wreaths at the altar of the memorial and then sign the visitors’ book kept there. Tobgay will plant a Bakul sapling on the memorial premises. Bangladesh’s foreign adviser Md Touhid Hossain and commerce adviser Sk Bashir Uddin are expected to meet the Bhutanese leader in the afternoon before he holds a tête-à-tête with Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus at his office in the city’s Tejgaon area around 3:00pm. Prime Minister Tobgay will also attend an official banquet in his honor in the evening.