AH Mahmood Ali has been made the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
After being sworn in on Wednesday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina gave him the portfolio which he held in the poll-time government.
Nazrul Islam, a retired Lieutenant Colonel, is officially the State Minister for Water Resources.
Abdullah Al Islam Jakob, who was deputy minister for water resources, has been shifted to the Ministry of Environment and Forest.
The Ministry of Water Resources is now headed by Jatiya Party’s Anisul Islam Mahmud and JP’s chief Anwar Hossain Monju is the Minister of Environment.
The Prime Minister, until now, had kept the foreign ministry reins to herself but had placed Md Shahriar Alam as its state minister.
Mahmood Ali, elected to Parliament from Dinajpur-4, was sworn in by President Abdul Hamid at the Bangabhaban on Wednesday. Nazrul Islam from Narsinghdi-1 also took oath as state minister.
The government now has 51 members after their induction but the Ministry of Home Affairs is yet to get anyone at its helm.
Jatiya Party has three posts in the Cabinet, which also has ministers from Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal and Bangladesh Workers Party. The chief of Jatiya Party (JP) is also there and the rest are from the Awami League.
Ali, a former diplomat, was appointed Foreign Minister on Nov 21 when the multi-party election-time government was formed.
A freedom fighter, he was one of the first to defect for Bangladesh in 1971 while serving as a Pakistani diplomat in the US.
He was the first Minister for Disaster Management and Relief when the ministry was established in September last year.
He was the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In his diplomatic career, he served as Ambassador to Germany with concurrent accreditation to Austria, Czech, and Slovac Republics.
He retired in 2001 as Bangladesh’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. He had also served as Dhaka’s Ambassador to Germany and Bhutan.
He had become popular among the Dhaka-based foreign diplomats through his briefings.
He had also changed the format of briefings that ambassadors and high commissioners liked.
Ali also took personal initiative to ensure security of all diplomats in Dhaka. The diplomats had cited fears of security when some of them did not turn up at the National Memorial on the Victory Day.
He joined Civil Service of Pakistan in the early 1960s and was elected to Parliament in 2008.
A career Foreign Service officer, he led his younger colleagues in protests against military strongman HM Ershad in December, 1990 while he was Additional Foreign Secretary.
Source: Bd news24