Bangladesh for free, peaceful and inclusive Indian Ocean

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen has said the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) under the leadership Bangladesh will be able to make remarkable progress and address the challenges of maritime safety and security.

During Bangladesh’s tenure (2021-2023), he said Bangladesh will move together with the 23 member states as a region and address all the challenges by capitalizing their strengths and turning weaknesses into strengths to place IORA in the World Map as one of the most effective and dignified organisations.

“Indian Ocean is a huge issue. We’ve a policy that the Indian Ocean will be open, free, peaceful and inclusive. We don’t want to see any unilateral dominance in the Indian Ocean,” Momen said while addressing a press briefing at the Foreign Ministry on Sunday (Nov 14).

Bangladesh will host the 23rd Meeting of the Committee of Senior Officials (CSO) and 21st Meeting of the Council of Ministers (COM) of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) on Wednesday (Nov 17) as it takes over the IORA Chairmanship for the first time in 24 years.

He said Bangladesh will prioritize capacity building of SIDS, LDCs and Developing States with the help from other 23 Member States and 9 Dialogue Partners.

More than 15 member states with 11 Ministerial level delegations are expected to join in-person. Another 8-10 Ministers/Vice Ministers/Deputy Ministers are expected join virtually. In total around 80 delegates are coming to Dhaka to participate in the meetings. They all are expected to meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Bangladesh is first time elected as Chair for the period 2021-2023. “We are assuming the Chairship with the theme ‘Harnessing the opportunities of Indian Ocean sustainably for inclusive development’,” Momen said.

IORA has six Priority and two Focus Areas namely Maritime Safety and Security, Fisheries Management, Trade and Investment Facilitation, Disaster Risk Management, Tourism & Cultural Exchanges, Academic, Science and Technological Cooperation, Blue Economy and Women’s Economic Empowerment.

Given widespread interest about Indo-Pacific, the Bangladesh Foreign Minister in his speech said “we expect that IORA will chalk out its own vision of the Indo-Pacific, a vision for a free, open, peaceful, secure and inclusive Indo-Pacific region, based on international law and with shared prosperity for all, so that we promote sustainable Blue Economy in the region.

Keeping that in mind, Foreign Minister Momen said Bangladesh will propose ‘IORA-Dhaka Development Initiative (IORA-DDI)’ to enhance capacity building through offering practical training, on-the job learning and physical demonstration in the areas where they have specialization and expertise.

“We will seek assistance of our Dialogue Partners for making this initiative an important tool for ensuring inclusive development in the region.”

He said Bangladesh is exceptionally vulnerable to Climate Change. Similarly, Indian Ocean Region, tagged as World’s Hazard Belt’, is always at the forefront of vulnerability to natural disasters, including cyclones, floods, earthquakes and tsunamis. Climate Change is real and we realized even more that we have to face the reality.

The Indian Ocean region is warming at a higher rate, which means the relative sea level can also increase over the regions and it will contribute to more frequent and severe coastal flooding in low-level areas and coastal erosion, Momen said.

Considering the gravity of the crisis and unifying role of IORA in this regard, he said Bangladesh will propose a platform for Climate Change within the framework of IORA.

In presence of 12 Ministerial level delegations, the Foreign Minister said the IORA Meeting is expected to showcase Bangladesh’s hospitality and offer good image of Bangladesh. “Becoming Chair of an important regional Organization is also matter of pride for us.”

Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen and Secretary Maritime Affairs Unit of the Foreign Ministry Md. Khurshid Alam were present at the press briefing.