US Ambassador Marcia Bernicat has said the 1992 deal of Rohingya repatriation can have additional characteristics considering the changed situation, reports bdnews24.com.
"It is the two governments to decide," he told the news agency on the sidelines of an event in Dhaka on Saturday, two days after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke with Myanmar's army chief by phone.
Tillerson had urged the army chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, allowing safe return of ethnic Rohingyas, according to the 1992 Joint Statement with Bangladesh and 'without further conditions'.
Bangladesh, earlier, pointed to the changed situation and said the 1992 rules would "not be realistic" now.
Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque, however, said that the 1992 agreement can serve as the 'principal base' of repatriation discussions.
"Obviously things have changed since 1992," Bernicat said.
"It's a good start because there was an agreement actually made. Obviously, the agreement of the 2017 will inevitably have additional different characteristics," she said, adding that the US was ready to help the two governments like other international community.
"We are all very hopeful," she said, given the fact that in the last one month there had been exchange visits by the ministers of two countries and both are working on forming a joint working group.
Speaking at the launch of an anti-TB campaign, Health Minister Mohammed Nasim has lauded the US response to the Rohingya crisis.
Bernicat thanked the health minister while talking to bdnews24.com and said the US would "continue to exert pressure on Myanmar".
"We believe, like Bangladesh, the problem lies back in Burma itself," she said.
She said Tillerson's phone call "proved that we are continuing our efforts".
Bernicat said they were focusing on the problem and putting pressure on Myanmar and urging the government and the army to do the right thing and bring the refugees back in a "safe and secure manner".
She said the international community have interest to resolve the crisis in a way that "restores Rohingyas' dignity and ability to live in that country where they born.
AFP report from Yangon adds: Myanmar's government began harvesting rice from farmland abandoned by Rohingya in northern Rakhine on Saturday, officials said, a move likely to raise concerns about the prospect of return for more than half a million refugees who have fled communal violence in the area.
The border region has been emptied of most of its Muslim residents since late August, when Myanmar's military launched a crackdown on Rohingya rebels that the UN has described as "textbook" ethnic cleansing.
Hundreds of villages have been burned to the ground, with more than 600,000 Rohingya -- a stateless group in mainly Buddhist Myanmar-fleeing across the border for sanctuary in Bangladesh.
Under intense global pressure, Myanmar has agreed to repatriate "scrutinised" refugees who can prove their residence in Rakhine.
But details of the plan remain sketchy, seeding concern about who will be allowed back, what they will return to and how they will live in a region where anti-Rohingya hatred remains sky-high.
On Saturday the government began harvesting 71,000 acres of rice paddy in Maungdaw -- the Rohingya-majority area hit hardest by the violence --according to state media and a local official.
"We started harvesting today in Myo Thu Gyi village tract," Thein Wai, the head of Maungdaw's Agricultural Department, told AFP.
"We are going to harvest some paddy fields of Bengalis who fled to Bangladesh," he said, using a pejorative term for the Rohingya commonly used by officials and the Buddhist public.
The official said he did not know what government would do with the rice or its proceeds.
Workers were based in from other parts of the country to assist with the harvest, according to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar.
Rights groups blasted the government's harvest as part of a systematic effort to expunge the Rohingya from Rakhine.
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