Myanmar To Repatriate Rohingya Refugees İn Bangladesh

Myanmar has agreed to repatriate around 2,400 documented Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh, after bilateral talks Sunday. 



The high-level talks resulted in Myanmar accepting refugees who were "verified" in 2011 as having arrived in Bangladesh from Myanmar. 



Bangladesh had pressed Myanmar to take back all 32,000 refugees living in two UN-run refugee camps in the eastern coastal region Cox's Bazar.



Myanmar's Deputy Foreign Minister U Thant Kyaw, in Dhaka on a five-day official trip, met with Bangladesh's Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque, who said that the agreement was a notable achievement in a meeting designed to build relations between the two sides. 



A working group will be formed in two months to initiate the repatriation process. 



The issue of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh has remained the biggest bottleneck in establishing close relations between the two neighboring countries over the last three decades.



The Rohingya minority, who mostly live in Myanmar's west, are denied citizenship and often face ethnic violence, which has forced many to flee into neighboring Bangladesh. 



At least 200,000 Rohingya reportedly fled into Bangladesh in 1978 when the Myanmar army carried out an operation to defeat Rohingya rebels but which many claim was used to target the Rohingya population in general. Since then there have been several waves of Rohingya migration into Bangladesh in response to ethnic violence and government policies. 



Apart from the Rohingya issue, the two ministers used the meeting to discuss closer relationships in several areas including trade and natural resource exploration. 



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