Saifuddin: Asean seeking to send back 1m Rohingya
KUANTAN: After setbacks, Asean is coordinating efforts to send home one million Rohingya who are seeking shelter in Bangladesh by early next year.
Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah said a team of Asean foreign ministers, led by Singapore Foreign Minister Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, would be in Myanmar at the end of this month to hold talks on measures that would be implemented to send the refugees back to Myanmar safely.
He said although one million Ro- hingya refugees was a huge number, once Asean put its plans into motion, it would mark the first step towards ensuring that all of them return to Rakhine, Myanmar.
“Vivian, who will lead the team as the Asean chairman this year, along with Thailand’s foreign minister (who will assume the Asean chairmanship next year) and other professionals, will be in Mynmar to look into the repatriation process... they will discuss this with the Myanmar and Bangladeshi governments.
“Our target is early next year as soon as the monsoon season ends.
“The process has to begin early next year .... I am not sure how fast we can complete it but that is secondary as the priority is to ensure the process takes off or else the problem will never be solved.
“This is nothing new as efforts have been done in the past (to send home the Rohingya) but it never materialised,” he said after opening a workshop on strengthening professionalism for Bahasa Melayu teachers here yesterday.