EU Ambassador in Dhaka Rensje Teerink on Wednesday said that united efforts of entire international community is needed to resolve Rohingya crisis.
“We don’t see unified approach,” she said, replying to a question while interacting with the diplomatic correspondents in Dhaka.
The Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Bangladesh (DCAB) organised the programme with the ambassadors of Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Italy, and Netherlands apart from the head of delegation Rensje Teerink.
DCAB President Angur Nahar Monty and General Secretary Touhidur Rahman were also present.
The diplomatic correspondents highlighted that the EU is not doing enough to resolve the crisis particularly holding Myanmar to account.
The EU remained the third largest trading partner of Myanmar after China and Thailand, despite human rights situation. The trade volume is also growing by the day which means that Myanmar is not facing the music.
“We feel EU is singled out that it is not doing enough. Let’s not forget many other countries are actually supporting Myanmar. We are looking in terms of our trade in terms of EBA (everything but arms) and this engagement is interesting development to follow in that scenario,” Teerink said.
“Look at the region and look other countries on their position on Myanmar. I think we are working with all the instruments that are disposal and all the forums including OIC and HUC for repatriation and accountability. We are engaging with the country (Myanmar) that’s recovering to democracy and see how it goes.
“It is not easy. Look at India and China and many other countries in ASEAN. We see Malaysia sometimes positive but see them pushing back Rohingya. I think whole international community should work together instead of singling out EU,” she said.
“Look at what other countries are doing. We all need to work together. So far our approach is how Bangladesh is hosting the enormous group of Rohingya.”
Bangladesh has given shelter to over 1.1 million Rohingya refugees in Cox's bazar. Most of them fled 'ethnic cleansing' in August 2017. The government is planning to relocate 100,000 of them to newly built camp in the river island Bhashan Char.
Replying to question, the ambassador said, we know that the government has done it to decongest the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.
“What our position on relocation to Bhashan Char is any relocation to Bhashan Char should be voluntary. There should be protection issue and it should be implemented in a way that they are safe. The underlying important issue is there are number of pending technical missions by the UN,” she said.
“We always said let’s first see what mission will bring. If the mission says it is totally safe and sustainable for these people to be relocated, then we can look how we can support this process. At the moment, we feel it is bit premature because the missions have not taken place on the Bhashan Char island.”
She also hailed Bangladesh’s growth perspective as ‘quite positive’ despite pandemic. “This is very positive development”.
Bangladesh enjoys duty free market access to the European countries under the EBA.
The ambassador, however, said it is not a ‘blank cheque’.
“It comes with strong conditions that Bangladesh needs to observe and in this regard labour rights are something that made quite good progress.”
“Another issue is business climate. We are working with Bangladesh and make it easier for business. I would say still there are lots of challenges. Bangladesh Business Climate will have a meeting early next year.”
