Dhaka to seek specific time-frame for Rohingya repatriation

Dhaka will seek a specific deadline from Nay Pyi Taw at foreign secretary-level talks to repatriate stranded Myanmar nationals in Bangladesh.

"Over 30,000 Myanmar nationals have been stranded at two camps in Cox's Bazar for years. Bangladesh wants them to go back to their own country as soon as possible," said an official of the Foreign Ministry.

The Rohingya repatriation issue will be discussed at the eighth foreign secretary-level talks between Bangladesh and Myanmar to be held at the Foreign Ministry today.

"The Myanmar side agreed about taking the Myanmar refugees located in the two camps. Now we will ask them to give us a specific time-frame," said a senior official of the Foreign Ministry.

In addition to that it is estimated that 0.3 million to 0.5 million undocumented Myanmar nationals living in Bangladesh and their repatriation will be also discussed, he said.

"Bangladesh and Myanmar have an understanding gap about the undocumented Myanmar nationals and we will try to remove them," he added.

Dhaka is well aware of the human rights situation in Rakhine state, but Bangladesh is a small country and it cannot allow Myanmar nationals to be pushed into its territory, said the  official.

At foreign secretary-level talks, the Bangladesh side will be led by Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque while the Myanmar side by Deputy Foreign Minister U Thant Kyaw.

The Myanmar delegation arrived in Dhaka on Thursday and visited Sylhet.

Both the parties will mainly discuss security dialogue, border management, Rohingya repatriation, trade, connectivity, gas import and other issues, foreign office sources said.

Bangladesh proposed making an arrangement to hold security dialogue at least once a year as confidence building measure. Dhaka has already handed over the draft of the memorandum of understanding on the security dialogue to the Myanmar government and would discuss the issue at the meeting to finalise it, he added.

Bangladesh and Myanmar have about 300km borders and they have agreed to control it jointly to tackle drug and human trafficking, arms smuggling and illegal movement of people.

The Myanmar side proposed setting up border liaison office which would coordinate the border management.

Bangladesh and Myanmar are the members of BCIM initiative and the issue would be discussed at official level talks.

Meanwhile, Myanmar has released provisional census data which show that the country has a population of 51.4 million people.

However, estimated 1.09 million people in northern Rakhine state are uncounted for and most of those who wanted to self-identify their ethnicity as Rohingya were not enumerated. 

http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/dhaka-to-seek-specific-time-frame-for-rohingya-repatriation/