Hasina reaches Montreal

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina arrived in Montreal on Thursday afternoon on a four-day official visit to Canada at the invitation of her Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.

The prime minister is visiting the Northern American nation to attend the Fifth Replenishment Conference of the Global Fund (GF), reports news agency BSS 

Canada hosts the GF’s Replenishment Conference to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Montreal on 16-17 September.

Bangladesh high commissioner in Ottawa Mizanur Rahman received Sheikh Hasina at the airport, while senior officials of the Canadian foreign ministry were present.

The prime minister will attend the opening session of the Replenishment Conference to be held at Hyatt Regency Montreal this afternoon.

She is expected to hand over the “Friends of Liberation War Honour” award to Justin Trudeau. The Bangladesh government posthumously awarded the honour to Justin’s father Pierre Trudeau, the then prime minister of Canada, for his outstanding support and contribution during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971.

Along with other heads of state and government, Sheikh Hasina will later join a reception to be hosted by the Canadian prime minister.

She will also attend the official dinner to be hosted by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon and Justin Trudeau.

Liberation war affairs minister AKM Mozammel Haque and foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali, among others, are accompanying the premier during her visit to Canada.

Earlier, Sheikh Hasina left London for Montreal after making a 22-hour stopover in the British capital.

The premier would depart Montreal for New York on 18 September  to join the 71st session of the UNGA.