After US, now Canada seeks access to Rakhine

Canada wants to send envoys to Myanmar's Rakhine state to report first-hand on the Rohingya crisis, a Canadian official said at a rally in Toronto. While speaking at the rally in support of the Rohingya, Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland emphasised on the importance of gaining ambassadorial access to Rakhine, reports the Huffington Post. Myanmar have previously refused several requests made by Canada to send envoys in Rakhine state where the recent violence has triggered an exodus of over 400,000 Rohingya. Earlier, officials from other western countries, including the United States, were also denied access to Rakhine. Freeland voiced the Canadian government’s key concern is to get the ambassador into "the area of heaviest conflict to report first-hand on the situation." She said: "Our ambassador is seeking access to Rakhine State. We would like our ambassador to go there so we can have Canadians seeing first-hand what is happening." Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Freeland plan to "focus" on the plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar at next week's United Nations General Assembly in New York. "I want you to know that this is an issue that matters to me very, very much. It's an issue that matters very much to the prime minister," Freeland told the crowd. Without elaborating the specific actions she or Trudeau plans to discuss at the UN assembly, she said Trudeau has expressed his "very strong condemnation" of the treatment of the Rohingya directly to Suu Kyi earlier this week. Freeland said she has also discussed the issue with Kofi Annan - the former UN Secretary-General who is currently leading a commission investigating the crisis unfolding in Myanmar. The 72nd session of the UN General Assembly has been scheduled for Tuesday.