Myanmar has agreed to attend a regional meeting in Bangkok next week to discuss the surging exodus of Rohingya boat people fleeing the country in their thousands, Deputy Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai said yesterday.
The Myanmar government was earlier reluctant to send a representative to the May 29 meeting in Bangkok, saying it will not accept responsibility as being the source of the migrant crisis.
"As Myanmar is in the region ... we all have to sit down and consider how to tackle this problem because these are human beings," Myanmar's Deputy Foreign Minister Thant Kyaw said after meeting Mr Don in Bangkok Wednesday.
"However, accepting those [boat] people will require a lot of work to confirm if they are from [our] shores, if they belong to Myanmar and to verify their residency," he said.
