The United States has identified one person it might impose sanctions on over the brutal crackdown in Myanmar against minority Rohingya Muslims and is examining others, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says.
The comment has come as a group of Myanmar newsmen chalked out a protest programme against arrest of two Reuters reporters, report agencies.
On the other hand, the government of Myanmar iterated on Saturday its readiness to receive the Rohingya refugees sheltered in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar. They were readying two camps to shelter the Rohingya starting in the last week of next month.
Tillerson, who last month declared the violence against the Rohingya to be "ethnic cleansing," has said Washington was considering "targeted sanctions" against those deemed responsible.
More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to southern Bangladesh since the end of August.
"We are continuing to examine the circumstances around all of the events since the August attacks that have led to the enormous migration of people out of Myanmar, and have already identified one individual and we are examining other possible individuals to hold responsible for targeted sanctions from the US," Tillerson told reporters at the United Nations on Friday.
US officials said that President Donald Trump's administration was considering only limited action at this stage. They said it was preparing narrow, targeted US sanctions against Myanmar's military and could roll out the punitive measures by year-end.
Preparations for Myanmar sanctions come at the same time that Washington has expressed concern over the detention this week of two Reuters journalists.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo had worked on stories about the military crackdown on the Rohingya population in Rakhine state.
A group of Myanmar journalists said they would begin wearing black T-shirts on Saturday in protest at the detention of the two Reuters reporters accused of violating the country's Official Secrets Act, as pressure builds on Myanmar to release the pair.
The Protection Committee for Myanmar Journalists, a group of local reporters who have demonstrated against past prosecutions of journalists, decried the "unfair arrests that affect media freedom".
In a statement on Facebook, the committee said its members would don black T-shirts "to signify the dark age of media freedom" in Myanmar. They demanded the unconditional and immediate release of the two reporters.
However, Myanmar said on Saturday it was getting ready to receive the Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh.
According to a report in the Mizzima, Union Enterprise of Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development (UEHRD) for Rakhine State Vice-Chairman Dr. Win Myat Aye said the Myanmar government is ready to receive those who return after fleeing to Bangladesh due to unrest in northern Rakhine State, to allow them to resettle in Myanmar safely again.
Dr. Win Myat Aye said the work to receive those who are repatriating from Bangladesh would start in the last week of January and this work would be done at a fast pace in accordance with the Myanmar-Bangladesh agreement. They will be rehabilitated in Ngakhura and Taungpyoletwe camps.
