Tunç Soyer, Mayor of İzmir Metropolitan Municipality, hosted the Ankara Ambassador Mosud Mannan of Bangladesh, who visited İzmir for the first time.

Stating that they have strong ties with Turkey, Ambassador Mannan said, “I am well aware of the importance of İzmir as a historical, tourism and trade centre, and we want to reinforce the relations between Bangladesh and Turkey. Unfortunately, it coincided with the pandemic period, but still, I could not wait any longer to visit İzmir. We would like to attend the IIF this year. There is a lot to be done within the service and education sector, areas of music, culture, sports and organization in particular. I visited a university in İzmir. Education has very strong foundations. We can make programmes to encourage young entrepreneurs of the two countries. Again, we can implement youth exchange programmes. In Bangladesh, we call mayors as 'the father of the city'. With your support, we can make these happen.”

Request for town twinning
Mannan said that they very much want the port city of Chittagong and İzmir to be sister cities, and that sister city relations will increase the cooperation between the two countries. Stating that Bangladesh will celebrate its 50th anniversary in December, Mannan also invited Mayor Soyer to the celebration event they will organize in Ankara.

Tunç Soyer, Mayor of İzmir Metropolitan Municipality stated, “There are many opportunities to reinforce the relations between our countries. There are opportunities in many sectors...tourism, agriculture. We are ready for anything to be done for the rights of the two countries. We are open to cultural change. We will initiate with the necessary work to become sister cities. We would like to see the culture producers of your country at the Global Culture Summit of the International Union of Local Authorities (UCLG), which we will organize simultaneously with IIF in September this year.  We would be more than pleased to host the Mayor of Chittagong in İzmir as well”.