National security adviser and chief adviser鈥檚 high representative on Rohingya issue and priority matters Khalilur Rahman on Tuesday said that Bangladesh would keep in touch with anyone required for the country鈥檚 interest, no matter if anyone took it otherwise.
鈥楤angladesh is a sovereign country. We will keep in touch with the people on the other side of the border for our own interest鈥攏o matter who say what. We have adopted an independent foreign policy,鈥� said Khalilur, also a former diplomat, while talking to reporters at the foreign ministry about the government鈥檚 decision to keep in touch with the ethnic rebel group Arakan Army, now controlling the Rakhine State of Myanmar. 听
On April 8, Khaliur at a press conference at the Foreign Service Academy disclosed that Bangladesh had been in discussions with the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group based in Rakhine, under a United Nations initiative for restoring stability in the state of Myanmar with an aim to send back the Rohingya people sheltered in Bangladesh.
On the same day, he also said that the government was also mulling an option to allow a 鈥榟umanitarian channel鈥� for providing aids to the conflict-ridden Rakhine state under the UN initiative.
The Bangladesh government has been continuing efforts to send back around 1.3 million forcibly displaced Rohingyas to their homeland without any progress, with the number of displaced people sheltered in Bangladesh camps increasing every year since the 2017 influx of Rohingyas amid a military crackdown on them in the Rakhine state.
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