Myanmar and Bangladesh reached a deal Thursday over repatriating hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled homes in western Myanmar since late August to escape violent persecution.
The "Arrangement on Return of Displaced Persons from Rakhine State" was signed in the Myanmar capital Naypyitaw by Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmud Ali and Kyat Tint Swe, Myanmar minister for the Office of the State Counselor, a Myanmar government press release said.
The signing followed a meeting earlier Thursday between Ali and Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi and a final round of discussions between the two sides Wednesday, according to official sources.
Details of the arrangement were not immediately available, though the statement said the document is based on a 1992 agreement between the two countries pertaining to an earlier period of repatriation of "displaced persons from Rakhine."
According to Bangladesh media reports, terms and conditions for a time-frame regarding completing the repatriation were discussed Wednesday.
The reports said Myanmar wants to start repatriation within the next two months but not set a completion deadline, while Bangladesh wants to complete the repatriation of Rohingyas within one year.
Bangladesh also reportedly proposed involving the international community, including U.N. agencies, in the verification process.
At Wednesday's meeting, the two sides did agree on establishing a ministerial-level joint working group to oversee the start of the process of repatriating all Rohingya, the Bangladesh media reported.
Myanmar immigration minister Thein Shwe said last month that under the repatriation process, Myanmar would provide application forms to be filled out by the refugees for officials from his ministry to verify, before allowing the Rohingya back into Myanmar through temporary holding facilities currently under construction in Maungdaw in northern Rakhine state.
Suu Kyi told a press briefing Tuesday at the end of the Asia-Europe foreign ministers meeting in Naypytiaw that her government was planning to sign a memorandum of understanding with Bangladesh this week which would enable the start of the repatriation process of all Rohingya from Bangladesh to Myanmar.
The United Nations estimates that more than 600,000 Rohingya from Myanmar's strife-torn Rakhine state have flooded into Bangladesh since late August, when violence broke out between armed Rohingya and Myanmar security forces, prompting a harsh crackdown.
The U.N. Security Council earlier this month issued a statement expressing alarm at the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine, urging Myanmar authorities to halt the "excessive use" of military force against the Rohingya, and expressing "grave concern" over reported human rights violations and abuses committed by security forces against them.
Rohingya who have fled to Bangladesh have told of atrocities committed by security forces including pack rape, execution-style killings and the razing of entire villages, leading the United Nations to claim that the situation in Myanmar's westernmost state appears to be "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing."
Myanmar authorities have said the military operations in Rakhine are simply aimed at restoring stability and eliminating the threat of "terrorism," after about two dozen government security posts there were attacked on Aug. 25 by Muslim militants calling themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.
The Myanmar government has long claimed that the Rohingya, a Muslim community in the overwhelmingly Buddhist nation, are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and the state of West Bengal in eastern India, and not legitimate citizens of Myanmar, even though many have lived there for generations.
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