bdnews24.com :
Bangladesh has taken “positively” the phone call US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has made to Myanmar’s army chief over the Rohingya issue.
“We have taken this very positively,” Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque told bdnews24.com when asked. They consider it as an “international pressure” on Myanmar, he added.
Tillerson spoke on Thursday with Myanmar’s army chief and expressed concern over atrocities against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State.
He urged the army chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, allowing safe return of those displaced in the crisis, especially the ethnic Rohingyas, according to the 1992 Joint Statement with Bangladesh and ‘without further conditions’.
Bangladesh, however, earlier said the 1992 agreement is “not realistic” in the current context.
Asked, the foreign secretary said, “Yes, the situation is different now, but we think the 1992 agreement can serve as the ‘principle base’ of the (repatriation) discussion.”
Over half a million Rohingyas took shelter in Bangladesh in a month since Aug 25 to escape violent crackdown in what the UN has described as ‘ethnic cleansing’.
Over 400,000 Rohingya Muslims have already been living in Bangladesh for decades.
Amid international pressure, Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a statement on Sept 19 said her country is ready to take back their nationals after verification.
She said the verification criteria will be based on principles agreed to in 1992 when the two countries inked an agreement based on which Burma took back nearly 250,000 Rohingyas as ‘members of Myanmar society’.
The Bangladesh side, however, later conveyed to diplomats that the situation of 1992 and current one are entirely different.
“Around half of the Muslim villages in the northern Rakhine State have been burned down and the burning is still going on. So, the identification of Rohingyas based on their residence in Rakhine would not be realistic,” the foreign minister had said.
bdnews24.com earlier saw the text of the 1992 agreement, article IV of which mentioned the criteria on how to verify them.
At that time, the Myanmar government agreed to repatriate in batches all persons “carrying Myanmar citizenship identity cards/ national registration cards, those able to present any other documents issued by relevant Myanmar authorities and all those persons able to furnish evidence of their residence in Myanmar, such as addresses or any other relevant particulars”.
The Myanmar government in a spirit of “cooperation” agreed to accept after scrutiny all those people who took shelter in Bangladesh and whose presence had been “recorded through Refugee registration cards” issued by the government of Bangladesh.
A diplomat who visited Rohingya refugee camps last month told bdnews24.com that “it is unlikely that they hold any cards issued by Burmese authorities”.
“They just ran for safety,” the diplomat said, adding that the Burmese government cancelled all the papers they used to hold a year ago.
The diplomat, however, said “still there could be some processes international community can set” and that Burmese authorities have all the documents related to Rohingyas.
The Bangladesh government has started biometric registration of the newly arrived Rohingyas, a process that the UN refugee agency UNHCR said would eventually help “to exercise the right to return when the time is right”.
Bangladesh has taken “positively” the phone call US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has made to Myanmar’s army chief over the Rohingya issue.
“We have taken this very positively,” Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque told bdnews24.com when asked. They consider it as an “international pressure” on Myanmar, he added.
Tillerson spoke on Thursday with Myanmar’s army chief and expressed concern over atrocities against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State.
He urged the army chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, allowing safe return of those displaced in the crisis, especially the ethnic Rohingyas, according to the 1992 Joint Statement with Bangladesh and ‘without further conditions’.
Bangladesh, however, earlier said the 1992 agreement is “not realistic” in the current context.
Asked, the foreign secretary said, “Yes, the situation is different now, but we think the 1992 agreement can serve as the ‘principle base’ of the (repatriation) discussion.”
Over half a million Rohingyas took shelter in Bangladesh in a month since Aug 25 to escape violent crackdown in what the UN has described as ‘ethnic cleansing’.
Over 400,000 Rohingya Muslims have already been living in Bangladesh for decades.
Amid international pressure, Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a statement on Sept 19 said her country is ready to take back their nationals after verification.
She said the verification criteria will be based on principles agreed to in 1992 when the two countries inked an agreement based on which Burma took back nearly 250,000 Rohingyas as ‘members of Myanmar society’.
The Bangladesh side, however, later conveyed to diplomats that the situation of 1992 and current one are entirely different.
“Around half of the Muslim villages in the northern Rakhine State have been burned down and the burning is still going on. So, the identification of Rohingyas based on their residence in Rakhine would not be realistic,” the foreign minister had said.
bdnews24.com earlier saw the text of the 1992 agreement, article IV of which mentioned the criteria on how to verify them.
At that time, the Myanmar government agreed to repatriate in batches all persons “carrying Myanmar citizenship identity cards/ national registration cards, those able to present any other documents issued by relevant Myanmar authorities and all those persons able to furnish evidence of their residence in Myanmar, such as addresses or any other relevant particulars”.
The Myanmar government in a spirit of “cooperation” agreed to accept after scrutiny all those people who took shelter in Bangladesh and whose presence had been “recorded through Refugee registration cards” issued by the government of Bangladesh.
A diplomat who visited Rohingya refugee camps last month told bdnews24.com that “it is unlikely that they hold any cards issued by Burmese authorities”.
“They just ran for safety,” the diplomat said, adding that the Burmese government cancelled all the papers they used to hold a year ago.
The diplomat, however, said “still there could be some processes international community can set” and that Burmese authorities have all the documents related to Rohingyas.
The Bangladesh government has started biometric registration of the newly arrived Rohingyas, a process that the UN refugee agency UNHCR said would eventually help “to exercise the right to return when the time is right”.
