Bangladesh Foreign Minister Mahmood Ali to visit Myanmar soon: Official

Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali will visit Myanmar to see the situation in the Rakhine State before the beginning of the repatriation of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh.

The minister will “go soon” to Myanmar to see the progress of the repatriation process including housing facilities, movement as well as livelihood, Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque said on Tuesday.

Haque spoke to journalists after inaugurating a workshop on maritime counter-terrorism in Dhaka.

The decision follows a recent meeting between the foreign minister and Myanmar’s Union Minister for the State Counsellor's Office Kyaw Tint Swe with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing.

Chinese Ambassador Zhang Zuo in Dhaka said on Sunday that China believes that starting the Rohingya repatriation from Bangladesh is the “most urgent” issue right now.

He said during the “informal” meeting, both Bangladesh and Myanmar have agreed that they should try to improve the situation in the Rakhine State in three steps – to stop violence, to start repatriation as soon as possible and to promote local development.

However, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee on Sunday in Dhaka said the repatriation talks are “extremely premature” as the cruelty is being meted out to the people in the Rakhine State.

Some recently arrived Rohingyas told her that the situation in northern Rakhine is “far from stable or safe”.

They also told her that the Myanmar security forces had entered their villages and told them that they must accept the national verification card – a form of documentation that does not provide citizenship rights and which the Rohingyas reject – or leave.

Several women told her that the security forces searched for their husbands who had been staying out of houses in fear. They said that they had been raped when their husbands were not found.

According to Lee, it is clear that the Myanmar government has made no progress or shown any real will to dismantle the system of discrimination in the country’s laws, policies and practices, and to make northern Rakhine safe for the Rohingya refugees to return in near future.

“So there must have some medium and longer term planning in Cox’s Bazar,” she said suggesting three things – education for all, access to meaningful livelihood opportunities and vocational training and freedom of movement.