Myanmar has made an outrageous claim that Bangladesh is delaying the start of the repatriation process for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees, saying it feared Dhaka could be stalling until it receives millions of dollars in international aid money.
Myanmar was ready to begin the repatriation process any time, based along the lines of an agreement that covered returns of Rohingya to Myanmar in the early 1990s, Zaw Htay, a spokesman for Myanmar's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, said, reports Reuters.
He claimed Bangladesh had yet to accept those terms.
Zaw Htay linked the delay by Bangladesh to the money raised so far by the international community to help build gigantic refugee camps for the Rohingya.
"Currently they have got $400 million. Over their receipt of this amount, we are now afraid they are delaying the program of deporting the refugees," he said in comments carried in a front-page article in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Wednesday.
"They have gotten international subsidies. We are now afraid they would have another consideration as to repatriation," he said.
The Bangladesh government issued a statement on Thursday saying that Myanmar had not agreed to 10 points put forward by its minister at last week's talks, including the full implementation of the recommendations of an Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, chaired by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, for a sustainable return of Rohingya.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told Bangladesh media on Friday that the two sides were unable to form a joint working group but said it should be set up by the time Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali goes to Myanmar for talks on November 30.
More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled predominantly Buddhist Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh since late August to escape ethnic violence that accompanied a brutal crackdown by the Myanmar military.
Thursday, June 04, 2026
