Hasina returns from Canada after G7 outreach session

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has returned to Dhaka, capping a four-day tour to Canada to attend the Outreach Session of the G7 Summit.

She landed at Shahjalal International Airport around 11:15pm on Tuesday from Toronto Pearson International Airport by Emirates Airlines plane after a stopover in Dubai.   

At the G7 outreach meeting in Quebec on Saturday, she presented four proposals, urging the international community, especially the G7 countries, to take steps to ensure safe return of the Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.

Hasina also called for steps to ensure accountability of those involved in the atrocities that forced the members of the ethnic minority to flee their country.

The prime minister met her Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau on Sunday and asked him to extradite Noor Chowdhury, a convicted killer of her father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

She met Bangladeshi expatriates in Toronto the same day and highlighted the importance of Awami League staying in power for Bangladesh to be developed further.

Before starting for Dhaka on Monday afternoon, the prime minister met Canada’s Special Envoy to Myanmar Bob Rae, Minister of Trade and Export Development, and Immigration and Career Training of Saskatchewan Jeremy Harrison, and Canadian Commercial Corporation President and CEO Martin Zablocki.

Hasina flew to Canada on Friday and attended a dinner hosted for the heads of state and government and representatives of international organisations by Governor General of Canada Julie Payette at La Citadelle de Quebec.

She earlier attended G7 outreach sessions in Japan in 2016 and in Italy in 2001.

The Canadian government invited many other world leaders and heads of international organisations to the G7 Summit for the special outreach session with the focus on healthy oceans and resilient coastal communities.