Staff Correspondent: A tripartite meeting among Bangladesh, Myanmar and China began on Tuesday afternoon to discuss ways to expedite the Rohingya repatriation process. China is hosting the virtual meeting. The secretary level meeting started at 2 pm. Foreign Secretary Masud bin Momen is leading the Bangladesh delegation.

Vice Foreign Minister of China Lu Zhaohui virtually joined from Beijing with the delegations from Bangladesgh and Myanmar. Permanent Secretary of Myanmar Foreign Ministry Wu Chan-ae is in lead of their delegation. Foreign Secretary Masood said, "If we take a village-based approach to restore the confidence of the Rohingya, it sounds tmore practical."

Over 800,000 Rohingyas fled the “genocidal violence”started in Rakhine by Myanmar military in 2016. There were about 4 lakh more Rohingyas who took refuge in different times to avoid torture, death and rape. Bangladesh is now hosting over 1.1 million Rohingyas.

The International community fids the repatriation isthe only solution to this crisis, and Bangladesh is eager to stat the process as early as possible. However, the talks regarding repatriation of these refugees, with Myanmar remained halted for nearly a year due to Covid-19 pandemic and general elections in Myanmar.

Bangladesh and Myanmar signed the repatriation deal on November 23, 2017, which was supposed to facilitate the return of Rohingyas to their homeland, but the process has not started yet. Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said the Rohingya repatriation was not starting due to Myanmar's lack of sincerity.

In this situation, China, a friend of both the countries, took initiative to solve the problems with Myanmar and Bangladesh. Bangladesh has already handed over a list of 830,000 Rohingyas to Myanmar as part of the repatriation process; Of these, only 42,000 have been verified by Myanmar. "Myanmar has verified very few people. They are very slow", said the Foreign Minister Dr. AK Abdul Momen.

Bangladesh is trying to multiple ways to get a lasting solution..