Washington praises Dhaka over dealing Rohingya situation

Senior officials of the US administration have praised Bangladesh's approach towards Rohingya people who took shelter in Cox's Bazar fleeing 'ethnic cleansing' in their homes in Myanmar's Rakhine State.

The Bangladesh embassy in Washington said Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque visited Washington DC on Feb 16 and met Lisa Curtis, Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for South and Central Asia at the National Security Council in The White House.

He also met Ambassador Alice Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the South and Central Asian Affairs Bureau at the US Department of State, and Ambassador Mark Storella, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration at the US Department of State.

During the meeting with Lisa Curtis, they discussed bilateral, regional and global security issues.

Curtis conveyed President Trump’s "deep appreciation" for Bangladesh for hosting more than a million forcibly displaced Rohingyas from Myanmar.

She also assured the Foreign Secretary of US's continued political and humanitarian support to Bangladesh in addressing this huge man-made crisis, the embassy said in a statement.

Ambassador Wells conveyed to Haque that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is "seized" with the issue and commended Bangladesh's extremely generous attitude and efforts to shelter such a huge number of persecuted Rohingyas from Myanmar.

They discussed various aspects of the growing partnership between Bangladesh-US Partnership and emphasised the need for further strengthening and expanding the same in the coming days.

During the meeting with Mark Storella, Haque conveyed Bangladesh government's sincere thanks to the US government for the latter's strong support to Bangladesh to address the Rohingya crisis.

"Ambassador Storella hugely praised Bangladesh's humane approach, despite its own resource constrains, to host more than a million Rohingya people from Myanmar who fled the atrocities in northern Rakhine and took shelter in Bangladesh.

He also said that the US would continue to provide humanitarian assistance. The Foreign Secretary left Washington on Feb 17.