Rohingya repatriation: Naypyidaw will honour deals inked so far

GBNEWS24DESK//

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen yesterday said Myanmar’s military government has conveyed that they would honour all the previous deals signed between Dhaka and Naypyidaw to commence Rohingya repatriation.

“That’s good news,” he told reporters while disclosing the outcome of his meeting with Chinese Ambassador in Dhaka Li Jiming.

On November 23, 2017, Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a repatriation agreement, but not a single Rohingya went back to their land of origin in Rakhine state from Bangladesh so far.

Momen said the Myanmar military authority informed Beijing that they are willing to take back the displaced Rohingyas after verification.

However, the foreign minister said, the Myanmar side did not mention any specific date for commencing the repatriation of the Rohingyas from Bangladesh.

Momen said China assured that Beijing would be continuing its efforts to resolve the Rohingya crisis.

“They (China) are facilitators, not decision-makers. We are requesting them again and again,” Momen said, adding that Dhaka will continue keeping pressure on China to resolve the crisis.

China has been playing a mediator role in the last four years between Bangladesh and Myanmar to find a durable solution to the Rohingya crisis under a tripartite mechanism.

The hour-long meeting between the foreign minister and the Chinese envoy was held at the State Guesthouse Padma while today’s discussion was confined to only Rohingya issues.

Ambassador Jiming at a recent event indicated that they are going to formally share the “feedback” with the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry based on what they talked with the Myanmar side.

The foreign minister said Dhaka wants to see a quick and sustainable solution to the Rohingya crisis.

“I am always a very optimistic person,” Momen said.

Since August 25 in 2017, Bangladesh has been hosting over 1.2 million forcefully displaced Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar district and most of them arrived there after a military crackdown by Myanmar, which the UN called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” and other rights groups dubbed as “genocide”.