Committed to support mutually-acceptable solution to enable return of Rohingya refugees: India

Dhaka:  There is no difference between India and Bangladesh on addressing the issue of displaced Rohingya Muslims, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said on Monday, as he expressed New Delhi’s fullest support for any mutually-acceptable solution for their earliest possible return to Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Bangladesh is home to nearly a million Rohingya including 740,000 who fled a military crackdown in Rakhine state in August 2017 that the UN has called ethnic cleansing.

Addressing a seminar in Dhaka on ‘Bangladesh & India: A Promising Future’, Shringla said India was deeply appreciative of the spirit of humanism that motivated Bangladesh to offer shelter to nearly one million displaced people.

He said there is also often “uninformed speculation” about India’s position on the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State of Myanmar, and its impact upon Bangladesh.

“And we fully recognise and sympathise with the enormous burden that you are facing,” Shringla said.

“As the only country that is an actual neighbour of both Bangladesh and Myanmar, we are committed to offering the fullest support for any mutually-acceptable solution that will enable earliest possible return of displaced persons to their homes in Rakhine state and to life of dignity,” he said.

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