Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Bin Mohamad said on Friday (Jul 26) that the Rohingyas should either be treated as nationals, or they should be given their territory to form their own state.

In an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency in Ankara during a four-day official visit to Turkey, the veteran politician talked about bilateral issues along with the Rohingya crisis, the Palestinian cause and the situation of Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang.

He said even though Malaysia generally does not wish to interfere with the internal affairs of other countries, it does so in this case due to the massacre or genocide that is happening in Myanmar.

“Myanmar, of course, at one time was made up of many different states. But the British decided to rule Myanmar as one state - and because of that, many of the tribes (were) included in the state of Burma.

“But now, of course, they should either be treated as nationals, or they should be given their territory to form their own state,” he told Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.

In 2017, more than 700,000 ethnic Rohingyas were driven from Rakhine State following a military-led crackdown that a United Nations’ report has said included mass killings and gang-rapes.

Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra‘ad al-Hussein, told the Human Rights Council that the episode was a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”, according to the UN website, reports The Strait Times, a Malaysian media outlet.

Meanwhile, asked to comment on the plight of the Uyghurs in China, Mahathir said Malaysia has always advocated for the settlement of conflicts through negotiation, arbitration or court of law.

“We should tell China (to) please treat these people as citizens. The fact that they have a different religion should not influence the treatment towards them. When you resort to violence, then it’s very difficult to find a good conclusion because there has been no case where violence has achieved the objective,” he said.