Int’l Forum in New York to Discuss Rohingya Crisis
According to the Daily Sabah, he said it will be held on the sidelines of the 72nd Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 72) on September 28.
Cavusoglu added that a number of heads of state and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will be among the participants at the forum.
The Rohingya Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State has faced systematic persecution for decades at the hands of Myanmar’s Buddhist majority, who consider most of them to be illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.
The military junta that ruled the nation for decades stripped them of their citizenship and rights.
The Rohingya were the targets of violence in 2012 that killed hundreds and drove about 140,000 people — predominantly Muslims — from their homes to camps for the internally displaced, where many remain in squalor.
Recently, Myanmar’s military has intensified attacks on Rohingya Muslims since August 25, after dozens of police and border outposts in the western state of Rakhine came under attack by an armed group, which is said to be defending the rights of the Rohingya.
The Muslim community had already been under a military siege in Rakhine since October 2016. The government used a militant attack on border guards back then as the pretext to enforce the lockdown. The Rohingya had already been subject to communal violence by extremist Buddhists for years.
Myanmar’s military is accused of committing atrocities and crimes against Rohingya people, who are considered by the UN as the "most persecuted minority group in the world.”
Guterres said on Tuesday that it is crucial that Myanmar’s government immediately reverse its longstanding policy and give Rohingya Muslims either nationality or legal status so they can lead normal lives and freely move, find jobs, and get an education.
Guterres cited the longstanding history of "discrimination, hopelessness and extreme poverty" in Rakhine and appealed to the country's civilian and military authorities to end the current violence.
"The grievances and unresolved plight of the Rohingya have festered for far too long and are becoming an undeniable factor in regional destabilization,” he warned.
