Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday urged the UN Security Council to press Myanmar to take back hundreds of thousands of its Rohingya nationals even as she called on India along with Russia, China and Japan to play a stronger role in resolving the refugee crisis.
Hasina has sought continued and mounting pressure on Myanmar from UN Security Council members “so that they(Myanmar) take their citizens back to their country (and) that’s what we want” as the high-powered team led by UNSC President Gustavo Adolfo Meza Cuadra met her.
“They want to go back to their own country. So the Security Council can play a very pivotal role,” she said.
“We expect countries like Russia, China, India and Japan to play a major role in resolving the Rohingya crisis,” the premier’s press secretary Ihsanul Karim quoted her as saying after a visiting high-powered UN Security Council team met Hasina at her office.
The 15-member UNSC currently does not include India, Japan and China but Hasina reiterated her call for mounting pressure from New Delhi as well the other three countries to tackle the crisis in view of their stake and influence in Myanmar.
External Affairs Secretary Vijay Keshav Gokhale earlier this month said New Delhi would extend full support to any efforts for resolving the Rohingya crisis, reiterating India’s appreciation for Bangladesh’s humanitarian gesture for the forcibly displaced people. The delegation comprised of envoys from the 15-member council as they met the premier a day after visiting crammed Rohingya camps in southeastern Cox’s Bazar where about 700,000 Rohingyas took refuge since the Myanmar military launched a crackdown on the ethnic Muslim community in Rakhine state last August.