Dhaka ready to assist Yangon in early repatriation: FM
Foreign Minister Dipu Moni expressed Bangladesh's readiness to extend assistance to Myanmar for early repatriation of the remaining Rohingya refugees to their homeland.
"With limited resources, Bangladesh had done more than enough for the refugees from Myanmar for the last three decades and Myanmar must take back its own people," she said at a meeting on the sidelines of the '3rd Bali Regional Ministerial Conference on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crimes'.
She also stressed multilateral approach by the countries of the region to solve the Rohingya problem.
Other ministers present at the meeting also agreed with her and called upon the Myanmar delegation to improve the state of affairs and develop basic facilities and resources in Rakhaine province of Myanmar.
Dipu Moni refuted the claim of Deputy Minister for Home Affairs and Chief of Police of Myanmar that Rohingyas were not an ethnic entity of Myanmar.
She said Rohingyas were in Myanmar for centuries and many Rohingyas even held high posts in the government of Myanmar. "Previous repatriation of quite a few hundred thousand Rohingyas and acceptance of list of further 28,000 Rohingyas proved that they were very much part of the population of Myanmar," she added.
Dipu Moni attended the conference held in Bali from April 14 to 15. It was co-chaired by Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith MP and Indonesian Foreign Minister Dr N Hassan Wirajuda.
In the conference, she mentioned that the Bali Process had earned respect for its specific emphasis on the suffering of the victims of smuggling and trafficking in persons -- a disproportionate number of which were women and children.
Dipu Moni stressed the need for sharing information and intelligence and improving cooperation among the law enforcement agencies of the countries concerned.
Describing all the legal measures in Bangladesh against human trafficking, she informed the meet that punishment for this crime might be as strict as capital punishment or life imprisonment.
The foreign minister said the TIP report, published by the US State Department in 2008, ranked Bangladesh as a Tier 2 country raising it above many others in the region (India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and China for example) which are still at Tier-2 (Watch list).
During a meeting with Indonesian Foreign Minister Dr N Hassan Wirajuda, Dipur Moni said if some tariff and non-tariff barriers could be removed, the bilateral trade between Bangladesh and Indonesia would increase further.
During another bilateral meeting, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith Australian offered assistance in the capacity building through 'Technical and Further Education' (TAFE) programme and stressed Australian support for investment, technical education and people-to-people contact.
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