Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali on Sunday ruled out the possibility of engaging in any war with Myanmar over the Rohingya issue.
"What do you say? Shall we engage in a war? Shall we? We won't engage in any war because the development we've had here will be destroyed," he said.
The foreign minister said this while responding to questions from reporters after holding two back-to-back diplomatic briefings at State Guest House Padma, reports UNB.
Replying to a question, he said what is going on in Rakhine state is nothing but genocide. "Of course it's genocide. It's genocide. Everyone is saying that it's genocide. And we're also saying so," he said.
Ambassadors, High Commissioners, CDAs from diplomatic Missions of Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, the USA, the UK, and EU and representatives from UN Resident Coordinator, UNHCR, WFP, Unicef, IOM, ICRC were present at the first diplomatic briefing. Ambassadors, High Commissioners and CDAs from diplomatic Missions of Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were present during the second diplomatic briefing.
Minister Mahmood Ali said war is not a solution to the Rohingya crisis, and war will never be the solution to this problem.
Terming the Rohingya influx as a national problem, the Foreign Minister said all have to come up and participate in this matter considering the national interest.
He said the countries that attended the briefings supported Bangladesh, its government and people for lending support to the Rohingya people.
"All of them appreciated us without any reservation. They said you (Bangladesh) have so many problems in your country, but you've given them shelters, food and medicare facilities," he added.
The Foreign Minister also mentioned that all will help Bangladesh address the current crisis. "This problem was not created by us rather by Myanmar. As the problem erupts in Myanmar so this problem has to be solved by them."
Minister Ali mentioned that Bangladesh will definitely help Myanmar to solve this problem.
"This is some sort of revenge on an incident that took place last month in Rakhine (Aug 25). This is not acceptable to kill all or burn all the villages there," he said.
Ali also said Bangladesh continues its diplomatic efforts to overcome the problem. "Diplomatic efforts cannot be done publicly, that's why we cannot talk sometimes openly. If we talk then this process can be ruined. This can be said when the appropriate time will comes."
The Foreign Minister categorically mentioned that those who came here crossing the border are definitely Myanmar nationals.
About taking the matter to multilateral level, the minister said the United Nations General Meeting (UNGA) will start on September 17. "At that time, we'll do our rest of the works -whatever is possible. We're also working in the Third Committee, which is the committee of human rights of the UN."
