Govt to encourage Rohingyas to go back Rakhine

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Bangla Tribune Report
Published : 21:04, Aug 18, 2019 | Updated : 21:06, Aug 18, 2019

Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque. FILE PHOTOThe government is working on repatriation of Rohingya people and it will encourage them to go back to their homeland, said Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque.
“You will see the next couple of weeks would be also the time when we will try and encourage Rohingyas to go back to their homeland,” he said at a programme on ‘Rohingya Crisis: Way Forward’ held at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies on Sunday (Aug 18).
The foreign secretary said if they don’t go back to their homeland they would be deprived of all their rights.
Terming repatriation as one of the priority issues for Bangladesh, Shahidul said, “Behind the scene initiatives are going on and there are attempts made and I think not every attempt has to be outcome centric but these are also processes that we need to pursue before the outcome comes to bear fruit.”
He added that the crisis has four dimensions and number of layers.
We didn’t see in the past some of the aspects of the crisis that we have seen now, and it just the beginning. There are more to come especially in terms of geopolitics, he said.
A banyan tree is seen at Balukhali camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, November 16, 2018. REUTERSOn the responses of China, India and Russia on the Rohingya crisis, he said, “I don’t think we were ever frustrated by the response we got because every country has its own national interest and we are aware of that context. So our expectations were more guarded than often it is valued in the public.”
Shahidul said Bangladesh is struggling with two contradictory views.
“One is your national interest and second is your international obligation,” he said adding, “A state is more interested to take international obligation for its own nationals, but how much international obligation you will take for non-nationals. That’s quite tricky.”
He said, “We are trying to keep a balance so that we continue to pursue both but in the end, it is our national interest that has to be upheld.”

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