POBNEWS24, Dhaka, Jan 28, 2022 : Bangladesh held its first meeting with Myanmar on Thursday (January 27) after a tripartite meeting mediated by China on the Rohingya issue on January 19, 2021.
The Bangladesh Foreign Ministry says both sides have expressed their goodwill in the technical talks to find out the reasons for the delay in selecting whether the Rohingyas who took refuge in Cox’s Bazar were Rakhine residents.
According to a press release issued by the Ministry, Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Shah Rezwan Hayat led the Bangladesh delegation at the meeting.
The Myanmar delegation was led by Ye Tun O, Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Immigration and Population.
The Foreign Ministry said in a video conference on Thursday that the two countries would hold a meeting of the newly formed Ad-Hawk Task Force for Verification of the Displaced Persons from Rakhine.
This is Bangladesh’s first meeting with Myanmar since the tripartite meeting mediated by China on 19 January 2021.
It was decided at that meeting that the working group of the two countries would meet in the first week of February next month. But in early February, the military junta seized power in Myanmar, ousting Aung San Suu Kyi’s government.
Prior to the tripartite meeting, the government had said that Bangladesh had handed over a list of 8 lakh Rohingyas to Myanmar in six phases, of which only 42,000 had been “verified” by Myanmar.
The foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday that “repatriation commissioner Rezwan Hayat has expressed frustration over Myanmar’s slowness in identifying Rohingya.”
He also offered all possible assistance in the light of the three bilateral agreements signed between the two countries to expedite the screening process.
During the meeting, Rezwan Hayat said that sustainable repatriation of displaced people could be started if the complexities and shortcomings in the verification process could be overcome.
In this case, it is necessary to create a conducive environment in Rakhine and restore confidence among the displaced people.
The repatriation commissioner mentioned in the meeting that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has ‘shown humanity’ by providing temporary shelter to the Rohingyas despite the various limitations and challenges of Bangladesh.
The foreign ministry said the Myanmar delegation had promised to help complete the unfinished verification process, citing technical complications and a lack of information.
Ye Tun also hopes that the task force will be effective in completing the screening process.
Within a few months after the start of the military operation in Rakhine, Myanmar on August 25, 2017, more than seven lakh Rohingyas took refuge in Bangladesh. There were already four lakh more Rohingyas in Bangladesh.
Despite international pressure, the Myanmar government signed an agreement with Bangladesh in late 2017 to repatriate the Rohingya, but the repatriation has not started yet.
Despite the two-point repatriation initiative in 2019, the Rohingya refused to return, citing concerns over the security environment in Rakhine State.
