Arakan News Agency
The Myanmar government said it hopes to send a special diplomatic team led by the deputy foreign minister to Bangladesh later this month amid increasing tension with the neighboring country over the tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar following violence that began in northern Arakan state in early October.
“It is possible that a Myanmar special diplomatic team will travel to Bangladesh this month when the Bangladesh prime minister and foreign affairs minister are available to meet them,” said Kyaw Zayya, director general of Myanmar’s foreign affairs ministry, on Thursday.
“We will arrange it through discussions with their government,” he said, according to reports. “The deputy foreign affairs minister will possibly lead the team. The team will have only three or four members, but it is difficult to say the exact date of the travel.”
A previous trip arranged in December failed to materialize after it was postponed for security reasons.
Bangladesh’s foreign affairs ministry has complained several times to Myanmar about the influx of 50,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled violence in Arakan after deadly attacks on Myanmar border guard stations in Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships on Oct. 9, and sought refuge in Bangladesh.
Members of the stateless minority group have left northern Arakan in droves since soldiers and police locked down the area after the attacks, which the Myanmar government has blamed on Muslim insurgents.
On Dec. 30, the Myanmar government said it would take back 2,415 of its citizens living in Bangladesh – a small number of the 300,000 people who Bangladesh says are Myanmar citizens who have taken refuge there and should return home, Reuters reported.
Bangladesh has refused to grant the Rohingya refugee status because it considers them citizens of Myanmar, while Myanmar considers the Rohingya illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and has denied then citizenship and access to basic services for decades.
Source : BenarNews
