Arakan News Agency
Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi confirmed that his country issues passports to displaced Rohingya individuals without granting them Pakistani citizenship.
Speaking after his meeting with Bangladeshi counterpart Jahangir Alam Chaudhry in Dhaka, Naqvi said that the passports would carry a different code or serial number to identify the holders as Rohingya.
Meanwhile, the Bangladeshi Interior Minister called on Pakistan to contribute to efforts to repatriate the Rohingya, noting that Bangladesh hosts around 1.3 million Rohingya refugees for humanitarian reasons despite the significant burden on its economy.
These remarks come at a time when Karachi is home to more than 400,000 Rohingya, according to unofficial estimates, making it the largest concentration outside Myanmar and Bangladesh. Pakistan is keen to cooperate with the international community regarding the situation of this group.
Naqvi’s visit to Bangladesh marks the first official visit by a Pakistani Interior Minister since 2012, taking place amid the ongoing Rohingya crisis that began in 2017, when more than a million fled violence and persecution in Myanmar.
Recently, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia announced a resolution to the long-standing issue concerning the legal status of Rohingya Muslims, during a meeting between Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and the Saudi ambassador to Islamabad, Nawaf bin Said Al-Maliki.
