Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who heads Bangladesh’s interim government, has been awarded the King Charles III Harmony Award 2025. The award ceremony took place in London on Thursday.
According to Yunus’s press secretary Shafiqul Alam, King Charles presented the award at St James’s Palace, praising Yunus’s significant contribution to global peace, environmental sustainability and social justice.
Alam described the event as an important moment for both Yunus and the people of Bangladesh, noting, “This was a key moment of his visit to the UK.”
Yunus is in the UK on a four-day visit that began on Wednesday. He is reported to hold talks with Tariq Rahman, acting chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the previous government in 2018 for organising the 2004 Dhaka bombings.
The Harmony Award, established in June 2024, is presented to those who contribute to harmonious relations with nature. The first recipient was former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Also on Thursday, King Charles III held a private meeting with Yunus at Buckingham Palace.
In August 2024, amid mass protests, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and left the country. A temporary government led by Yunus took over the country’s administration.
On June 6, he announced that elections would be held in the first half of April 2026, despite recommendations from the military and political parties to hold elections before the end of this year.
