Turkish MPs plan to meet Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh

By Emin Avundukluoglu and Alper Atalay

ANKARA (AA) - A group of Turkish lawmakers will visit Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh soon to assess their situation first hand, head of Parliamentary Union of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (PUOIC)’s Turkish group told Anadolu Agency.

Orhan Atalay, who is also a parliamentarian of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party from Adana province, said the decision was made during the executive committee meeting of parliamentary union body in Iranian capital Tehran on Saturday.

The visit to Bangladesh is expected to take place before the PUOIC's general conference on Jan. 10, 2018 in Tehran.

"We proposed the item on the agenda about what can be done for the tragic situation of Arakan/Rohingya Muslims," he said.

"Our proposal was put to the vote and it was unanimously accepted."

Atalay said Turkish MPs would visit the camps of Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh.

Since Aug. 25 when the military launched a crackdown against Rohingya, 519,000 Rohingya have crossed from Myanmar's western state of Rakhine into Bangladesh, according to the UN.

The refugees are fleeing a military operation in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women and children, looted homes and torched Rohingya villages. According to Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hasan Mahmood Ali, around 3,000 Rohingya have been killed in the crackdown.

Atalay said the executive committee also decided in favor of "an institutive cooperation" against terrorism and extremism.