Rohingya crisis needs constructive handling: Jaishankar

The Rohingya refugee crisis sparked by a military crackdown in Myanmar needs to be handled in a more "constructive and practical" manner, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar said on Thursday.

"The Rohingya issue is a matter of concern," Jaishankar said in response to a question at a seminar on "Connecting the Bay of Bengal: India, Japan and Regional Cooperation" organised by the Carnegie India think tank here.

"Our aim is to see how they can move back (to Myanmar)," he said. "It is better to handle it in a more constructive and practical manner than to go for strong condemnation."

According to the latest figures issued by the UN office in Bangladesh, 604,000 refugees have entered the country since August 25 after the Myanmarese Army's crackdown on the minority Rohingya community following a series of attacks on security personnel in Rakhine.

The Rohingyas do not have citizenship in Myanmar and are sparingly given refugee status in Bangladesh.

On Sunday, during her visit to Bangladesh, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said India was "deeply concerned" over the violence in Rakhine state.

--IANS

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