Iran Sensitively Pursuing Resolution of Rohingya Muslim Crisis
Speaking to IQNA, Bahram Qassemi described the crackdown on the Muslim minority as a genocide and a clear example of crime against humanity.
He said that since the beginning of the crisis, the Islamic Republic has sought to resolve it through diplomatic efforts.
Iran has been pursuing the issue in the United Nations, Organization of Islamic Conference and other international circles, he said.
Qassemi also noted that the Islamic Republic was among the first countries that adopted a stance against the genocide and gave the necessary warnings about the situation of Rohingya Muslims to the UN, Islamic countries and other states.
He said Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has written two formal letters to the UN secretary general and made numerous phone calls to his counterparts in Muslim countries to discuss the issue.
"We have also been in contact with the Myanmar government and tried to send a high-ranking political delegation to the Southeast Asian country but the Myanmar government has yet to give the permission for the delegation’s trip.”
He noted, however, that Iran’s ambassador to Thailand has recently visited Myanmar to clarify the Islamic Republic’s stance about the Rohingya crisis and let the Myanmar government know how the crisis can affect its ties with the Muslim world.
Qassemi also highlighted Iran’s delivery of humanitarian aid to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and a visit by a senior Iranian political delegation to Rohingya refugee camps there.
More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled the violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where there is an ongoing crackdown by the military on the minority group, and entered Bangladesh.
Rohingya Muslims have long faced severe discrimination in Myanmar and were the targets of violence in 2012 that killed hundreds and drove about 140,000 people from their homes to camps for the internally displaced.
In September, the UN top human rights official accused Myanmar of carrying out "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” against Rohingya Muslims.
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said the military’s "brutal” security campaign was in clear violation of international law, and cited what he called refugees’ consistent accounts of widespread extrajudicial killings, rape and other atrocities.
