Foreign Minister Dr Khalilur Rahman, who has been elected president for the UN General Assembly’s (UNGA) 81st session, today indicated he will continue to discharge his roles in both capacities concurrently.

“Will I leave this [foreign minister’s] job? Is that the question? Don’t be so hurried. There is precedence,” he told reporters at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs while responding to a question.

He cited the example that Humayun Rashid Chowdhury, the last Bangladeshi before him to be elected UNGA president -- in 1986-87 -- and added, “I was his private secretary and worked with him. He worked in both posts full-time.”

In response to a question if he would resign if elected president of the UNGA during an informal dialogue at the UN in New York on May 13, Khalilur said he will take a leave for the full-time post.

“Will I resign? No, my prime minister [Tarique Rahman] has told me very clearly that he is going to let me off for one year to do a full-time job. Resignation is not the only option. I can get a leave,” he had said.

In a secret-ballot election, Khalilur secured 99 votes to Andreas Kakouris’s 91. A total of 190 ballots were cast, with no invalid votes or abstentions. Three countries did not vote.

Khalilur returned to Dhaka today and was accorded a reception by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the afternoon.

Before leaving the ministry, he told reporters that he dedicated the victory to Bangladesh’s future, as the country reclaimed the post four decades later.