Italy offers support for Bangladesh's police reforms, safe migration

Italian ambassador Antonio Alessandro on Wednesday met chief adviser Muhammad Yunus and said his country would support Bangladesh's police reforms and work together for formal migration to the country.

Safe, organised and regular migration to Italy, economic and trade cooperation, and police reforms dominated the talks during the meeting held at chief adviser's office.

"We want to protect Bangladesh migrants. We have to work for better regular migration," ambassador Alessandro said.

The envoy praised the reform efforts of the interim government.

He offered Italian support for police reforms, including training for the security forces.

"Our police do it in several countries," said the ambassador.

The meeting came a week after the chief adviser and Italian PM Giorgia Meloni held a one-on-one meeting at the UN Headquarters in New York.

During the UN meeting, professor Yunus called for the large-scale formal migration from Bangladesh to Italy. Meloni said both nations should work hard to cut irregular migration.

The ambassador hoped that bilateral trade between the two nations would "rebound soon." Currently, the bilateral trade between the two nations is around $2.5 billion.

The Italian embassy would also hold a movie festival and a ballet soon, he said.

In the margins of the high-level week of the 79th United Nations General Assembly, the president of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister), Giorgia Meloni expressed Italy's support for the reform process in Bangladesh and the main goal of improving the population's social and economic conditions.

The meeting in New York also provided an opportunity to discuss migration, with the intention being stated to strengthen cooperation on this issue, in particular by relaunching negotiations to complete a bilateral agreement to combat irregular migration flows, establish closer cooperation on returns and, at the same time, support legal paths.