Tripartite meeting on Rohingya repatriation this noon

A tripartite meeting between Bangladesh, China and Myanmar will take place in the capital this noon (Tuesday).

The secretary-level meeting will be held virtually that will begin at 2.00pm.

Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen will lead the Bangladesh delegation. Vice Foreign Minister of China Luo Zhaohui and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Myanmar U Chan Aye will attend the meeting.

According to sources, Dhaka will seek quick start of Rohingya repatriation that has not been possible in more than three years since the refugee influx. Bangladesh may propose to send Rohingyas on a village-based. 

This will be second such meeting between the three countries. Earlier, they held a foreign minister-level meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September 2019.

Two attempts to repatriate the refugees to their homeland ended in failure after around 750,000 Rohingyas took shelter in Bangladesh to escape a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine State in August 2017.

Rohingyas say there is no guarantee of safety, citizenship and basic rights in Rakhine where many Rohingyas were killed, women raped and their houses burnt -- for which Myanmar now faces a genocide case in the International Court of Justice.

Bangladesh, meanwhile, has faced serious socio-economic, environmental, security and diplomatic challenges due to the presence of some one million Rohingyas, many of whom fled to Bangladesh since 1980s.