Dhaka – The Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will discuss “genuine steps” on Thursday that the OIC and the international community should take to address the Rohingya issue. UNB news agency reported
The OIC foreign ministers are holding the “extraordinary meeting” in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, upon the request of the Malaysian government to discuss the situation of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs M Shahriar Alam, who is now on his way to Abu Dhabi to attend another event, will represent Bangladesh at the OIC meeting and uphold Bangladesh position. He will head towards KL after his programmes in Abu Dhabi, a foreign ministry official told UNB on Monday.
Some 65,000 Rohingya people entered Bangladesh since October 9 last and Bangladesh demanded Myanmar to take back all Myanmar nationals staying in Bangladesh, including documented, undocumented and new arrivals.
The OIC meeting will urge the Myanmar government to allow delivery of humanitarian assistance to Rakhine state, address the root causes of the violence, and widen the scope of dialogue among the groups to ensure the return of the displaced Rohingya population to their homes in safety and dignity.
The meeting will also discuss the situation of over 120,000 displaced and refugee Muslims within Myanmar, according to OIC officials.
This upcoming ministerial meeting is going to be held against the backdrop of ongoing concerns of the OIC General Secretariat for the situation of the Rohingya Muslims and the continuing violence as well as the stance of the Myanmar government on the situation in Rakhine state.
The Islamic groups in New York, Geneva and Brussels had last month held emergency meetings to discuss the ongoing crisis the Rohingya Muslim minority facing in Myanmar.
The aim was to identify necessary measures that can be taken as prelude to convening the extraordinary meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers scheduled for Kuala Lumpur.
The foreign ministers of the OIC Contact Group on Rohingya Muslims also held their meeting on the sidelines of the Council of Foreign Ministers session held in Tashkent last October.
The meeting called again on the government of Myanmar to restore the citizenship of the Rohingyas which had been revoked under the 1982 citizenship law.
OIC Special Envoy for Myanmar Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar said the main objective was to create protection for the ethnic minority, whose rights as citizens have been denied.
“Malaysia proposed the meeting because of the urgency of the matter, and not because we want to interfere in Myanmar’s internal affairs. Neither do we want to confront the Myanmar government,” he said.
“This is not a communal issue as claimed by the government but rather a religious issue because they (the Myanmarese) are targeting Muslims in their conflict with the Rohingya,” he was quoted by Malaysian media as saying on Monday.
Syed Hamid also said that the Asean community, which Myanmar de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has referred to as a family, must respect and understand its obligations not only under the Asean Charter but also international law.
