Myanmar has proposed taking back the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who have fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks, the Bangladeshi foreign minister said after talks Monday with a senior Myanmar representative.
"The talks were held in a friendly atmosphere and Myanmar has made a proposal to take back the Rohingya refugees," A H Mahmood Ali told reporters.
The UN has previously reported that increasingly isolated Muslim communities in Rakhine are receiving regular threats from ethnic Rakhine Buddhists to leave the area.
Myanmar denies ethnic cleansing is under way and instead blames Rohingya militants for whipping up the violence, which has also displaced tens of thousands of Rakhine Buddhists and Hindus.
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The crisis has inflamed already blistering religious tensions and fuelled a dizzying array of claims and counter- claims from different ethnic groups.
The Muslim Rohingya have been the target of especially acute hatred in Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship and are instead branded "Bengalis" -- or illegal migrants who do not belong in the Buddhist-majority country.
With Agency Inputs
