Deeper ties with Myanmar a priority for India: Modi

“With tens of thousands of Rohingya pouring across the border, and thousands of others displaced in the state, the evidence that the Burmese military has launched a vicious campaign of retaliatory violence against the predominantly Muslim Rohingya people is overwhelming”.

Following an army crackdown on Rohingya insurgents in August, at least 400 people and about 125,000 Muslim-minority Rohingyas have fled to neighboring Bangladesh – leading to what many have said is a major humanitarian crisis, Reuters reported.

Myanmar’s Rohingya, a mostly Muslim people, live in the state of Rakhine, in the country’s west. He warned there was a risk of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar that could destabilise the region.

“As the situation in Rakhine has been such since many decades, goes back to pre colonial times, ” Aung San Suu Kyi said.

Suu Kyi was awarded the prize in 1991, while under house arrest at the hands of Myanmar’s military junta, from which she was released in 2010.

Suu Kyi is under mounting global pressure to stop the alleged human rights violations against the Rohingyas, who are denied citizenship in Myanmar.

Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, while addressing a joint news conference with PM Modi at the presidential palace at Naypyidaw, said that Myanmar was grateful for India’s stance on the attack on her country.

They were excerpts from a phone call Aung San Suu Kyi held with Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Rohingya Muslims are often referred to as the world’s most persecuted minority. You in India would be well versed with this.

“Muslims have a very sensitive responsibility regarding the massacre of Myanmar’s Muslims, should not remain silent (on the issue) and should rise (against prosecution of Muslims)”, the senior cleric added.

She said that Bangladesh is refusing to accept Burmese refugees because it can not afford the economic burden, so Muslim countries should step in to help them.

Erdogan, whose wife and a son will accompany Cavusoglu to Bangladesh, said this week he had spoken to 20 world leaders about the issue, and would press for it to be discussed at the United Nations later this month.