Bangladesh and Myanmar have agreed to form a joint working group to solve the Rohingya crisis, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali said after meeting a representative of Aung San Suu Kyi.
The decision came from a minister-level meeting between Bangladesh and Myanmar in Dhaka on Monday.
It was decided in the meeting that Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal would travel to Myanmar to work on the Rohingya issue, according to Somoy TV.
Foreign Minister Ali led the Bangladeshi side in the meeting. Other members of his team included the home minister, Chief Secretary Kamal Abdul Naser Chowdhury, Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque, and State Minister for Foreign Affairs M Shahriar Alam.
Kyaw Tint Swe, the union minister for the office of Myanmar's Ministry of the State Counsellor, headed the other side.
This was the first meeting between the neighbours over the Rohingya issue since the latest chapter in the crisis unfolded on August 25 when insurgents attacked police outposts and an army base.
Myanmar military's brutal offensive, targeting the mainly-Muslim ethnic minority in the Rakhine state, has since forced more than half a million Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.
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The UN described the Myanmar violence “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. An estimated 400,000 Rohingya had been living in Bangladesh before the latest influx in late August.
Buddhist-majority Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya as citizens although the community has been living there for generations and sees them as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.
Bangladesh's decision to provide shelter to the Rohingya has earned it global admiration while Dhaka has been building up international opinion to put pressure on Naypyitaw to take back its citizens.
At the recent UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina put forth a five-point proposal, including full implementation of the Kofi Annan Commission recommendations, to solve the problem.
Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi sent her representative Swe to Dhaka as international pressure on her increased tremendously over the Rohingya issue.The article was first published on Bangla Tribune