This week’s Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) has been positive, forcing regional states like Myanmar and Bangladesh to work together to find a solution for the return of Rohingya Muslim refugees, a top Swiss foreign ministry official has declared. The ASEM meeting in Myanmar’s capital Naypyitaw was beneficial both for Bangladesh and Myanmar, as it “obliged them to cooperate in finding a solution for the repatriation of the refugees”, Switzerland’s Secretary of State Pascale Baeriswyl told the Swiss News Agency on Tuesday. She made her remarks at the end of the two-day gathering, attended by 51 states including Switzerland. The meeting had been scheduled in Myanmar before the outbreak of the Rohingya crisis. More than 600,000 Muslim Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since late August, driven out by a military clearance operation in Buddhist majority Myanmar’s Rakhine State. Amid a growing humanitarian disaster, human rights groups have accused the Myanmar military of atrocities, ...
