PM flies to Azerbaijan Thursday

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina leaves here for Baku on Thursday on a four-day official visit to Azerbaijan to attend the 18th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

The two-day summit of NAM, a forum of 120 developing countries, will be held at Baku Congress Centre in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku on October 25-26, reports UNB. 

According to her tour schedule, a special flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines carrying the Prime Minister and her entourage will take off from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport for Baku at 4pm on Thursday.

The flight is scheduled to land at Baku Heydar Aliyev International Airport at 8:55pm (local time) the same day.

After the reception at the airport, a ceremonial motorcade will escort the Prime Minister to Hilton Baku where she will be staying during her tour of Azerbaijan.

On Friday morning, Sheikh Hasina will join the welcome ceremony of the 18th NAM Summit at Baku Congress Centre.

Along with other NAM leaders, the Bangladesh Prime Minister will later attend the opening ceremony of the summit at the Plenary Hall of Baku Congress Centre.

She will join the Working Luncheon to be arranged for heads of delegations at the Luncheon Hall of the centre, and the Plenary Session.

In the evening, the Prime Minister will attend the official reception to be hosted by Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev at Heydar Aliyev Centre.

On Saturday, she will join the Plenary Session, the Working Luncheon for the heads of delegations and the closing ceremony of the summit.

Sheikh Hasina will attend dinner to be hosted at Hilton Baku by the Bangladesh Ambassador to Turkey who is concurrently accredited to Azerbaijan.

On the sidelines of the NAM Summit, the Prime Minister is expected to meet a number of heads of state or government, sources at the Foreign Ministry said.

Concluding her four-day visit to Azerbaijan, Sheikh Hasina will leave Baku Heydar Aliyev International Airport for home on a Biman Bangladesh Airlines special flight at 11am (local time) on Sunday.

The flight is scheduled to reach Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka at 7:45 pm (BST) the same day.

NAM was founded during the collapse of the colonial system and the independence struggles of the people of Africa, Asia, Latin America and other regions of the world and at the height of the Cold War.

Its actions were a key factor in the decolonisation process, which later led to the attainment of freedom and independence by many countries and people and to the founding of tens of new sovereign states.

Throughout its history, the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries has played a fundamental role in the preservation of world peace and security.

NAM has 120 member countries, 17 observer countries and 10 observer organisations. It had its first summit in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1961.