Bangladesh seeks to boost relations with Myanmar

Bangladesh wants to take its relations with Myanmar to a new height developing close partnership for mutual benefits and has sent a formal message in this regard to the Myanmar leadership through its special envoy.As Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s special envoy, foreign secretary M Shahidul Haque reached Yangon yesterday on a five-day visit to discuss ways to make the ties stronger with the spirit of peace, non-interference, and friendly approach towards each other.Haque is carrying a letter of the prime minister to be handed over to Myanmar’s State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw, foreign ministry officials in Dhaka said.Through the letter, the Bangladesh leadership is conveying a message to Myanmar that Bangladesh is keen to develop a friendly relationship with Myanmar keeping all the misperceptions aside. The foreign secretary will also have meetings with Chief of Army Staff Min Aung Hlaing and Foreign Ministry Permanent Representative U Aung Lyll.Bangladesh wants to convey a message that it is willing to work with the resource-blessed Southeast Asian country ensuring mutual respect and interest, the foreign ministry sources said.Myanmar’s ruling party has already indicated that their new democratic government will have a change in its approach towards Bangladesh, ending decades of mistrust between the two neighbours.Myanmar wants to warm up its ties with Bangladesh observing that there had been “chilled” relations between the two in the past and it also wants to see Bangladesh government take measures to remove all the barriers.The country is seeing a shift after the government changed hands on March 30, officially ending more than 50 years of the military’s control over government.While talking to a group of Bangladeshi newsmen recently in Yangon, NLD chief patron U Tin Oo said the new government in Myanmar will proceed with an approach of resolving all the problems through discussions in a peaceful manner with Bangladesh as the ruling party NLD values Myanmar’s all neighbours with equal respect.“Every problem will hopefully be settled with a peaceful manner,” said U Tin Oo on May 2.Prime Minister Hasina visited Myanmar in December 2011 on a three-day bilateral visit. In March 2015, the prime minister also visited Myanmar to attend the third summit of the Bimstec (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Co-operation).Bangladesh is a home to 32,000 documented Rohingya refugees and they are taking shelter in two camps in the southeastern district of Cox’s Bazar.Apart from the registered Rohingyas in two refugee camps, about 300,000 ethnic minorities from Myanmar are living illegally in the district, according to the first round of government census, held from February 1 to 23 to identify Rohingyas in Bangladesh.