LONDON, July 26: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today urged the Commonwealth Secretary General to give emphasis on migration and development issues and include those in the Commonwealth strategic plan.

"Bangladesh wants to see progress on the issue of migration and development placed in the agenda of the last Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM)," she said when Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma called on her at her hotel suite.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina arrived here on Wednesday on a five-day official visit to the UK to attend the inaugural ceremony of London Olympics 2012.

"The migration issue should be included in the strategic plan of the Commonwealth in a suitable manner and we want to see steps to organize activities on the issue," the Prime Minister said.

After the meeting, PM's Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad told BSS that the Prime Minister introduced Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni as a deserving candidate for the Chair of Commonwealth Minister's Action Group (CMAG) for the next tenure. The election will be held this year in New York.

Sheikh Rehana, youngest daughter of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni,
Ambassador-at-Large M Ziauddin, Bangladesh High Commissioner in London Dr M Sayeedur Rahman Khan and Rezwana Siddiqui Tulip, a councilor of London and daughter of Sheikh Rehana, and Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad were present.

In the meeting, the Prime Minister expressed her firm commitment towards ensuring good governance, human rights, rule of law, gender equality, equal opportunity and freedom of expression and said her government has been working in that spirit in the CMAG.

She appreciated the role of CMAG in promoting the Commonwealth values and principles saying the group has been serving as guardian to achieve the goal. She also welcomed the role of Commonwealth in overseeing elections in member countries.

The Prime Minister thanked Kamalesh Sharma for Commonwealth's technical assistance to get Bangladesh prepared in the UN Commission on Limit of Continental Shelf and a project on arsenic pollution of ground water.

She reiterated her government's firm commitment to Commonwealth spirit and said her sister Sheikh Rehana has been representing Bangladesh in different events of the Diamond Jubilee programmes marking 60th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II, also the Head of the Commonwealth.

She said the parliamentarians of Bangladesh are looking forward to the 58th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in Colombo on September 7-15, 2012.