For the second time in three months, Bangladesh National Security Adviser (NSA) Khalilur Rahman will be in Doha, Qatar, ostensibly to be take part in a “meeting with the high officials to prepare strategies for Rohingya-Rakhine mediation”, official information accessed by Northeast News show.
Khalilur Rahman will be in Doha for two days – August 28 and 29. However, Bangladesh Foreign Ministry officials said that the two-day visit “is not expected to deal with the Rohingya issue as much as it will be focused on the Rakhine State” where the Arakan Army has suffered some military setbacks in its fight against the Myanmar military junta.
Over the last one month or so, the junta forces have stepped up military offensives against not just the Arakan Army but also other insurgent groups in different regions of Myanmar.
Soon after returning from Doha, Khalilur Rahman will go on a two-day visit to Beijing beginning on September 3.
The official purpose of the visit is to take part in a programme relating to the 80th anniversary of the surrender of Japan.
The real objective, documents accessed by Northeast News, is to hold “bilateral meetings” with senior Chinese officials.
The last time Khalilur Rahman was in Doha was on May 26 when he was in the midst of a controversy surrounding the thorny and vexatious issue of a “humanitarian corridor” to Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
At that time, he left for Doha on an early morning Qatar Airways flight (QR-639) for a so-called “official visit”.
During Khalilur Rahman’s May visit to Doha, US Charge d’Affaires in Dhaka, Tracey Ann Jacobson, had also flown to the Qatar capital before proceeding on a long trip to the United States.
This time, well-placed government sources said, Khalilur Rahman’s objective appears to be to meet with US intelligence officials who seem to be directing the Rakhine part of their operation from Doha which has been a long-time American military base.
