Bangladesh summons Myanmar’s envoy over minister’s remarks about Rohingya

Bangladesh has summoned Myanmar’s ambassador over controversial comments made by the Myanmarese religion minister about Dhaka and Rohingya Muslim refugees, and called for legal action against him.

Senior officials at the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that Ambassador Lwin Oo had been called in after Myanmar’s religion minister, Thura Aung Ko, claimed in a video release that Rohingya Muslims living as refugees in Bangladesh were being “populated” and “brainwashed” by Bangladesh to then “march on” the Buddhist-majority country.

The Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry denounced Thura’s remarks as “provocative.”

“We strongly protest their minister’s provocative remarks. It also hurt Muslim sentiments,” a senior official in the Bangladeshi ministry anonymously told Reuters. “If you give them citizenship and their property back, they will run for Myanmar. Instead of doing that, you are making provocative statements? This is unfortunate.”