Return of 'displaced persons' can restore normalcy in Myanmar: Sushma in Dhaka

Dhaka: India is “deeply concerned” at the spate of violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State where normalcy will be restored only with the return of “displaced persons”, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday said here amidst the raging Rohingya refugee crisis.

Nearly 600,000 minority Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh since late August to escape violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State where the army has launched a crackdown against militants.

Myanmar doesn’t recognise Rohingya as an ethnic group and insists that they are Bangladeshi migrants living illegally in the country. Bangladesh has sought India’s “sustained pressures” on Myanmar for its resolution.

“India is deeply concerned at the spate of violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State,” Swaraj said after talks with the Bangladeshi side as part of the fourth Joint Consultative Commission.

She, however, preferred not to use the word “Rohingya” and said “we have urged that the situation be handled with restraint, keeping in mind the welfare of the population”. Swaraj is on a two-day visit to Bangladesh at the invitation of Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali.

“It is clear that normalcy will only be restored with the return of the displaced persons to Rakhine state,” she said.