Myanmar leader to visit Malaysia after migrant returns begin / Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko - POOL/AFP
Myanmar leader to visit Malaysia after migrant returns begin
Myanmar's coup leader turned president Min Aung Hlaing will visit Malaysia "in the next few days", Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said Tuesday, after Kuala Lumpur launched a plan to return thousands of Myanmar migrants.
The visit comes after a group of nearly 1,500 returnees reached Myanmar on Sunday, with rights groups warning Rohingya refugees could be among those sent back.
Malaysia says about 5,000 Myanmar nationals have agreed to "voluntary" return, but authorities have not commented on the ethnicities of those who have returned.
"During the visit of the President of Myanmar to Malaysia in the next few days, the foreign minister, the home minister, and I will raise issues towards a solution," Anwar told the Malaysian parliament Tuesday.
Naypyidaw has repatriated nearly 10,000 migrants from Malaysia this year, its state media said Monday.
Anwar said Myanmar had to "guarantee proper treatment to their own people so that there is no abuse, oppression and violation of human rights".
"But for me, any country that wants to bring back their people from our country, we welcome that," Anwar added.
The Malaysian visit will be among Min Aung Hlaing's most diplomatically significant since ASEAN leaders froze out Myanmar's junta following the 2021 coup and ensuing civil war.
But Anwar said last month he would welcome the Myanmar leader to expedite migrant repatriations.
"I want to tell him that we can be friends and trade. We can accept Myanmar, but they must accept (their refugees) back," Anwar said during a podcast interview.
The repatriation plan follows what Malaysia's human rights commission has called "growing hostility, discriminatory rhetoric and online attacks" against the Rohingya in Muslim-majority Malaysia.
- Largest refugee group -
Malaysia hosts more than 215,000 refugees and asylum seekers registered with the United Nations refugee agency, including more than 126,000 Rohingya from Myanmar -- its largest refugee community.
The UN and rights groups have raised concerns about the repatriations, with monitors fearing any Rohingya could face a new wave of abuses in Myanmar, where they are denied full citizenship.
Rights advocates view Min Aung Hlaing as the primary architect of the 2017 crackdown, which is being weighed by the International Court of Justice as potential genocide.
Myanmar this month pledged "safe and dignified" returns for its citizens displaced abroad.
Myanmar is also riven by the violence, with 50 killed last week in a military airstrike on a marketplace in western Rakhine state.
"This is no time to return anyone forcibly to a country plagued by egregious human rights violations and abuses," UN rights chief Volker Turk last week.
Min Aung Hlaing ousted the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, plunging Myanmar into a civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people, according to monitor ACLED.
Since elections that were widely dismissed as a charade, Min Aung Hlaing became civilian leader and launched a drive for regional recognition.
Malaysia will be the fifth nation of the 11-member ASEAN bloc -- following Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia -- to welcome him since taking up the presidency.
He has also visited China -- which previously backed him behind the scenes, according to analysts -- as well as India and Russia.
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U.Lindner--NWT
