Bangladesh, Myanmar foreign secretaries to discuss Rohingya repatriation on Tuesday

The foreign secretaries of Bangladesh and Myanmar will meet in Dhaka on Tuesday to, what the officials say, finalise the ‘joint working group’ and the terms of reference or TOR to facilitate the return of Rohingya Muslims.

The meeting is a follow-up of the deal signed by two countries on Nov 23 with an announcement that the repatriation process will begin within two months.

The international community, however, said the return must be safe and voluntary.

Myanmar’s Permanent Secretary U Myint Thu has already reached in Dhaka for the meeting.

According to the foreign ministry, the meeting with Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque will begin at 8.30am at State Guest House Meghna.

A senior official of the foreign ministry told bdnews24.com that the main focus of the meeting would be to finalise the TOR and the joint working group for starting the repatriation process.

The official said a secretary-level official of the foreign ministry would head the joint working group where all relevant ministries will be involved, according to the proposal from the Bangladesh side.

The decades-old Rohingya crisis took an appalling turn on Aug 25 when Burmese military began “ethnic cleansing” in Rakhine State. An estimated 655,000 Rohingyas had fled across the border from Myanmar since Aug 25, when armed insurgent attacks killed 11 members of the Myanmar security forces.

Some 400,000 Rohingya refugees were already living in Bangladesh before the recent influx, having crossed the border to escape persecution at various points in the past few decades.

The Human Rights Watch said 354 villages were partially or fully destroyed in the Rakhine State since the military crackdown began in August.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein told the BBC that attacks on the Rohingya had been "well thought out and planned" and he had asked Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi to do more to stop the military action.

The top UN human rights official has said he would not be surprised if a court one day ruled that acts of genocide had been committed against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar.