To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with his counterpart in Myanmar on the treatment of minority communities in that country’s Rakhine and Kachin provinces.
Answered on
9 May 2018
The Foreign Secretary raised his concerns about the treatment of the Rohingya of Rakhine State when he met State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi on 11 February. He pressed her Government to take action in Rakhine to ensure Rohingya refugees would feel safe to return, and to investigate allegations of human rights violations. The Minister for Asia and the Pacific reiterated these messages in his meeting with the Burmese Ambassador on 6 March.
Following his visit to Kachin State in January 2018, the British Ambassador raised with the Burmese Defence Minister our concerns about renewed fighting and military restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian relief to ethnic Kachin communities. The Minister for Asia and the Pacific called on 28 April for the Burmese military to show restraint and to protect civilians in Kachin following the recent surge in fighting between the military and the Kachin Independence Army.