Bangladesh

Dhaka will demand setting a date for Rohingya repatriation to Myanmar Rohingya
File Picture Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

Dhaka will demand setting a date for Rohingya repatriation to Myanmar

Bangladesh Live News | @banglalivenews | 18 Nov 2020, 12:56 pm

Dhaka, November 18: Foreign Minister Dr. AK Abdul Momen said Dhaka would demand the newly elected Myanmar government to set a date for the repatriation of Rohingya. Bangladesh's allies have promised to increase pressure on Nay Pyi Daw.

"We will ask them (Myanmar's newly elected government) to set a date for the start of Rohingya repatriation," he told reporters after a discussion on the Sylhet Development Authority Act at the Foreign Service Academy in the capital on Tuesday. "We (Bangladesh) are ready to send them (Rohingyas) back."

Dr. Momen said: "Bangladesh's allies have assured Dhaka that Myanmar's elections are over and that they will now put renewed pressure on Nay Pyi Daw to begin Rohingya repatriation."

"Our friends, like China, Japan, the European Union and the United Kingdom, have said they will help Myanmar take the initiative (Rohingya repatriation)."

The Foreign Minister said Bangladesh has already joined the Bangladesh-China-Myanmar trilateral initiative to repatriate Myanmar Rohingyas from Bangladesh.

He said talks on Rohingya repatriation were closed due to the Covid-19 epidemic and the Myanmar election. Dhaka is now waiting for the formation of a new government in Myanmar. When the new government is fully formed in Myanmar and when other countries recognize that government, then Bangladesh will also recognize it.

In the context of the relocation of Rohingyas to Bhasan Char Island. Momen said the government has decided to send 1 lakh Rohingyas to Bhasan Char, though the transfer date has not been finalized yet. Myanmar has promised to repatriate Rohingya in various ways, but not a single Rohingya has returned to Rakhine in the last three years.

Bangladesh has given shelter to 1.1 million Rohingyas forcibly displaced from Myanmar in Cox's Bazar district. Most of the Rohingya have fled and taken refuge in Bangladesh since August 25, 2017, after the Myanmar army launched an operation in their homeland.