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Myanmar to provide NID to Rohingyas


Published : 02 Oct 2019 09:00 PM | Updated : 07 Sep 2020 01:37 PM

Foreign minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Wednesday said the Myanmar Government has agreed to provide National Identity Card to all the Rohingyas after verifying their credentials and take them back to their homeland as soon as possible. The minister said this while briefing journalists following a seminar on ‘Preventing Radicalization and Violent Extremism through Empowering Youths’ organized by Bangladesh Enterprise Institute at a city hotel.

The foreign minister also termed the Myanmar government’s gesture as an achievement of Bangladesh during the just-concluded United Nations General Assembly in New York and added that he and his counterpart of Myanmar discussed the Rohingya issue on the sidelines of the UNGA at the mediation of their Chinese counterpart.

Dr Momen further said a tripartite working group involving China was also formed to look after the Rohingya issue. It’s a good news that China is now very actively engaged in Rohingya Issue, he added. At the UN General Assembly, almost all the countries have agreed that the Rohingya crisis is created by Myanmar and it’s their responsibility to resolve the crisis, the minister further said.

“Myanmar has agreed that the forms they had supplied to identify citizenship of the Rohingyas were erroneous. They have agreed to provide new forms and National Identity Card to the Rohingyas who will be identified as Myanmar citizens,” Dr Momen said. When asked, Dr Momen said that the media report about the Indian government’s opening gates of Farakka Barrage is not true. As part of the regular operation, the authority concerned opened gates of the barrage, he added.

Earlier while speaking as chief guest at the seminar he said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is firmly determined to uproot corruption, militancy and terrorism from the country. "The civil society also plays a vital role to keep the society as well as the country free form terrorism, militancy and corruption. Everyone from his or her position should cooperate the government to become successful in this regard," he said.

Bangladesh is currently hosting more than 1.1 million Rohingyas. As many as 750,000 members of the Muslim minority group in Myanmar's Rakhine state fled ‘ethnic cleansing’ in their homeland in August 2017. Despite attempts to repatriate the refugees, no-one returned to their homeland citing Myanmar's failure to create conditions conducive to their “voluntary, safe and dignified” return.