Staff Reporter: Working group meeting will be held in the first week of February with an expection that the repatriation of Rohingyas will begin in the second quarter of 2021.

Foreign Secretary Masood bin Momen told reporters after the Bangladesh-Myanmar-China trilateral meeting on the Rohingya issue on Tuesday (January 19th). "We wanted to start Rohingya repatriation in the first quarter. But Myanmar said issues regarding logistics and physical arrangement and addressing those will take some time. We can expect that it will begin in the second quarter,"

The secretary said that anyone from the international community would be welcome to join the process. aAnd expected China will be with us as a mediator everywhere.

After the meeting, the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh said, "Our working group will meet in the first week of February and its scope will increase a bit." Earlier, the ambassadors of China and Myanmar used to attend our Director General (DG) level meetings.

Expressing hope that Rohingya repatriation would start in the second quarter of this year, Foreign Secretary Masood bin Momen said, "There are still many factors to be addressed. Keeping these factors in mind, since we have not been able to date twice before, now is the time to learn from them."

Bangladesh proposed village-based repatriation. Secretary Momen explained, if Roingyas of one village go to Rakhine together, they will feel safe. This is also more practical.Masud also said, some vested quarters oppose repatriation and we are working to control them.

We are taking the matter very seriously. If the bilateral agreement is signed, it will take years to get more than 10 million people there. In the last 3 years, 90,000 new babies have been born. So this total number will continue to grow, many complications will increase. So there is no option to start the repatriation process quickly. However, there were clear sign of flexibility in both China and Myanmar sides in the virtual meeting.