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Bangladeshi interim leader Muhammad Yunus returns home after four-day visit to London

This is the stable version, checked on 20 June 2025. Template changes await review.

Friday, June 20, 2025

Yunus in May 2025.
Image: Naikaku Sōri Daijin Kantei.
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Muhammad Yunus, Chief Adviser of Bangladesh, returned home on Saturday, June 14, after a four-day visit to London between June 10 to 13.

Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam had told reporters on Thursday that the main subject of the visit was the recovery of about £174bn (US$234 billion) in national assets, which Bangladesh authorities claim were "siphoned off" to other countries during Sheikh Hasina's former premiership.

On Thursday at St James's Palace, Professor Yunus received the King Charles III Harmony Award 2025, sponsored by The King's Foundation, in recognition of his work promoting "peace, sustainability and harmony between people and the environment." Earlier during his visit, he was received by King Charles III for a private audience at Buckingham Palace.

Yunus offered to meet with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer during his visit, but no meeting was scheduled. According to the BBC, Yunus said he had not received an explanation, and suggested Starmer may have been busy. According to The Business Standard, political and diplomatic commentators including former ambassador M Humayun Kabir and analyst Altaf Parvez criticised the handling and communication of the proposed meeting, which had been announced by diplomat Siddique on June 4. Bangladesh Enterprise Institute president M. Humayun Kabir pointed out that the announcement led to high expectations, and that the failure to secure the meeting may have contributed to a negative public perception.

Yunus gave a speech at the Chatham House in front of director Bronwen Maddox on Wednesday, during which he discussed the issues his interim government needed to tackle, his anti-corruption efforts and foreign policy, and also addressed the plight of Rohingya people, many of whom lived in the world's largest camp for refugees in Cox's Bazar: "We are working very hard to make sure that we can repatriate those people to go back. In the meantime, we have problems. The US government stopped all the money, the USAID money suddenly disappeared. And what used to be $12 a month per person for food, suddenly that $12 disappeared."

The Chief Adviser declined a meeting with Labour Party MP Tulip Siddiq, Sheikh Hasina's niece, who, according to the BBC, has been under investigation by the government's Anti-Corruption Commission for allegedly illegally receiving land from her aunt's former administration. He said during a BBC interview that those allegations were a "court matter" but expressed full confidence in the commission. Siddiq, who resigned from her Treasury position in January, said she was disappointed with Yunus's decision and denied all the allegations.

On the last day of the trip, Friday, a visiting delegation including the Head of the South Asia Regional Department Lesley Craig and Commodore Whalley briefed Professor Yunus on the capabilities of HMS Enterprise, a naval survey vessel with oceanographic and hydrographic purposes, which is being procured for the Bangladesh Navy. Yunus re-affirmed the importance of a joint effort between both nations on using such a vessel for research and data collection, saying it would benefit Bangladesh by leading to a better understanding of its own resources and oceans.

When asked by Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairman Tarique Rahman about the prospects of a national election in 2026 before Ramadan, Yunus said it would be held in February as long as there was adequate progress in political and judicial reforms, after suggesting in the previous week that the election could take place in April 2026.

An Emirates Airlines flight carrying Yunus and his entourage first departed from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka around 19:30 local time (13:30 UTC) on Monday, June 9, arriving in Heathrow Airport the following day at 06:05 UTC. Acting Secretary of Ministry of Foreign Affairs Md. Ruhul Alam Siddique called it a "very important visit".

Yunus's Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight departed from Heathrow at about 18:15 UTC on Friday, arriving at Hazrat Shahjalal in Dhaka at 09:45 (03:45 UTC) the following day, according to his deputy press secretary Abul Kalam Azad Majumder.

Professor Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has served as chief adviser of the interim Bangladesh government since Sheikh Hasina's ouster amid a wave of student-led protests in August 2024. According to Reuters, the caretaker government has faced pressure from civil servants, teachers, political parties, and the military, while the opposition BNP has called for elections to be held by December.


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