Dhaka keeps doors open

A Myanmar team will arrive in Bangladesh next week to discuss the mass exodus of Rohingyas, an official said yesterday, amid huge diplomatic efforts to find a durable solution to the crisis.

The team is "coming early next week," Bangladesh's Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque told AFP, saying they would be working on the Rohingya issue.

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A senior foreign ministry official said the team was expected to be led by U Kyaw Tint Swe, union minister for Office of the State Counsellor.

Dhaka had invited the minister for talks before the latest eruption of violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state triggered one of the world's worst refugee crises in recent decades, writes AFP.

The bilateral talks come as Dhaka mounts a huge diplomatic effort to find a permanent solution to the Rohingya problem and make Myanmar take back all the refugees to their homeland in Rakhine.

Diplomatic sources told The Daily Star yesterday that Myanmar was sending Kyaw Tint Swe for a two-day visit likely from October 1 to discuss the repatriation of the Myanmar nationals who entered Bangladesh since August 25.

Last week, Myanmar's National Security Adviser U Thaung Tun met Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali on the sidelines of UNGA in New York and proposed a bilateral dialogue with Bangladesh to resolve the crisis.

The adviser also expressed his government's willingness to send a senior minister from the State Counsellor's Office to initiate the dialogue with Bangladesh.

Dhaka instantly welcomed it, said a highly placed source. 

“We have kept our doors open for resolving the Rohingya problems both through bilateral and international means,” a high official of the foreign ministry said.

During the meeting with the foreign minister in New York, Bangladesh also handed over a four-page document to the Myanmar side. It contained a detailed plan on how Myanmar can start repatriation of its displaced nationals now living in Bangladesh.

Dhaka in its official note asked Myanmar to begin the repatriation within the next one month. It also suggested starting the repatriation with the registered refugees, who are already verified by the UNCHR, Myanmar and Bangladesh and staying at Nayapara and Kutupalong camps under the 1993 agreement.

There has been mounting international outrage over the plight of the Rohingyas, prompting the UN Security Council this month to call for an end to the violence.

The UNSC will meet tomorrow to discuss the violence in Myanmar and hear a briefing from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the crisis.

Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, a senior diplomat said Bangladesh was expecting “concrete steps” through a UNSC resolution to resolve the crisis as forcibly displaced people from Myanmar continue flooding Bangladesh.

“We are seriously working behind the scene. There are positive signs and we want to keep up the present diplomatic momentum so that a binding resolution comes out from the Security Council to compel Myanmar to permanently resolve the Rohingya crisis,” he said.

In another development, two ministers from the UK and Japan's parliamentary vice-minister for foreign affairs will arrive in Dhaka this morning to discuss the Rohingya crisis.

They will hold meeting with high government officials about finding a peaceful and lasting solution.

Talking to The Daily Star, a diplomat in Dhaka said the visit of Japanese Vice Minister Iwao Horii is a follow-up to the bilateral meeting of Mahmood Ali and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono on the sidelines of the UNGA on September 18.

Iwao Horii, who visited Myanmar on September 21-23, will hold a breakfast meeting with high officials of the foreign ministry today.