3 new envoys appointed to US, Canada, Switzerland

Staff Reporter :

The interim government has appointed new ambassadors to the United States, Canada, and Switzerland.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh’s High Commissioner to Canada, Nahida Sobhan, has been appointed as the Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations Mission in Geneva.

Meanwhile, the current Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN Mission in Geneva, Tareq Md Ariful Islam, has been appointed as the next Ambassador of Bangladesh to the United States.

The respective authorities have accepted the agrements for Nahida Sobhan and Ariful Islam as the new envoys to Geneva and Washington. They have not joined the missions yet.

The government of Bangladesh was officially informed this month that the proposed envoys have been accepted.

Nahida Sobhan is an officer of the 15th batch of the BCS (Foreign Affairs cadre). Before her appointment as High Commissioner to Canada, she served as Bangladesh’s Ambassador to Jordan.

Ariful Islam, the newly appointed Ambassador to the United States, is an officer of the 17th batch of the BCS (Foreign Affairs cadre). He previously served as Bangladesh’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, former Foreign Secretary M Jasim Uddin has been appointed as Bangladesh’s High Commissioner to Canada. Although his agrement has not yet been received, it is expected to arrive soon.

At that time, although there was an initial plan to appoint Jashim Uddin to the United States, the interim government later decided to assign him to Canada for strategic reasons.

Prior to his appointment as Foreign Secretary, he served as Bangladesh’s Ambassador to Qatar from 2020 to 2022 and as Bangladesh’s Ambassador to the Hellenic Republic (Greece) with concurrent accreditation to the Republic of Malta and Republic of Armenia from 2015 to 2020.

He also served as Deputy High Commissioner at the Bangladesh High Commission in Islamabad from 2012 to 2013; as Minister and Deputy Chief of Mission at the Bangladesh Embassy in Washington DC from 2008 to 2012; as Counsellor at Bangladesh Embassy in Tokyo from 2003 to 2005; and as First Secretary and Counselor at the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi from 2000 to 2003.