Iran pursues Myanmar Muslim developments: Official

A senior Iranian official says the Islamic Republic actively pursues the developments in Myanmar and the killings of the Muslims in the South Asian country.

Mohammad Reza Baqeri, the deputy head of the office of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution for international affairs, who is in Turkey to attend a meeting at the invitation of Turkey’s Dianat (religious affairs) Organization, made the comment on Sunday.

During the meeting, he said, Hojjatoleslam Ali Qazi-Askar, the representative of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution for Hajj Affairs, held talks with a leader of Myanmar’s Muslims and discussed the atrocities against the Rohingya Muslims in the country.

He added that the Myanmarese Muslim leader would give additional information on the mass murder of the Muslims in another meeting with Qazi-Askar.

On the first day of the Istanbul meeting, Qazi-Askar and a number of the world’s Muslim scholars from different countries, including Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Russia and Tunisia denounced the mass killing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and called for prompt action by the international organizations to stop the violence.

The government of Myanmar refuses to recognize Rohingyas, who, it claims, are not natives, and classifies them as illegal migrants, although, the Rohingyas are said to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Pathan origin, who migrated to Myanmar as early as the eighth century.

Over the past two years, scores of ethnic Muslims have attempted to flee by boat in the face of systematic oppression by the Myanmarese government.

Reports say 650 Rohingya Muslims have been killed since June 28 during clashes in the Rakhine state in the west of the country. This is while 1,200 others are missing and 80,000 more have been displaced.