YANGON: The EU’s foreign policy chief on Monday hailed “extremely encouraging” talks with Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi on the Rohingya crisis, welcoming steps toward the repatriation of Muslims driven into Bangladesh.
Federica Mogherini joined a stream of diplomats to meet Suu Kyi in recent days as efforts intensify to resolve a crisis that has pushed 620,000 members of the Muslim minority into Bangladesh.
China has made a “three-phrase” proposal to resolve the crisis — involving a cease-fire, refugee repatriation and poverty alleviation — with a Beijing foreign ministry spokesman on Monday saying its plan had won approval of leaders in both Bangladesh and Myanmar.
China has pumped billions of dollars into both countries as it widens its regional infrastructure and trade networks.
But the increasing expressions of optimism appeared sharply at odds with the realities on the ground.
Deadly attacks by Rohingya militants in Myanmar’s Rakhine state on August 25 sparked a massive backlash from security forces which the UN says may amount to “ethnic cleansing.”
Rohingya refugees now in Bangladesh have described a campaign of rape, murder and arson by the army and militias.
Large numbers of Rohingya are still fleeing violence, fear and hunger in mainly Buddhist Myanmar every day.
Myanmar denies any abuse, saying it is ready and willing to take back refugees if they can “verify” they belong in Rakhine.
But rights groups say a speedy and safe repatriation of significant numbers is highly unlikely.
The EU’s Mogherini, who visited refugee camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar over the weekend, emerged from Monday’s talks with Suu Kyi in a positive mood.
“I found it (the talks) extremely encouraging,” she told reporters in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw at a meeting of Asian and European foreign ministers.
“I am very much encouraged by the possibility — that I believe is real and concrete — of Myanmar and Bangladesh” reaching an agreement for the repatriation of refugees.
The two countries have agreed in principle to repatriate the refugees but have yet to strike a binding deal.
Nobel winner Aung San Suu Kyi has faced intense criticism outside Myanmar for her perceived failure to speak up for the Rohingya.
But visiting Naypyidaw on Monday, France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian praised her for “taking the initiative” to resolve the crisis.
The status of the Rohingya remains highly emotive in Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship and labeled “Bengalis,” or illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Few want them to return.
Rohingya villages have in any case been razed and rice fields commandeered or left to rot, raising major questions over what they could return to.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, pushed out of Myanmar in several previous army-backed operations, have also yet to return despite decades-old repatriation deals with Bangladesh.
Safety is also an immediate concern, with reports emerging of the Rohingya still in Rakhine coming under intense pressure to flee.
Myanmar has found itself at odds with supporters of its democratic transition over its treatment of the Muslim minority.
Washington’s top diplomat Rex Tillerson last week cited “credible” reports of atrocities since late August.
But Myanmar’s diplomatic isolation has been eased by China, which has helped shield it from censure at the UN Security Council.
Beijing covets access to Myanmar’s west coast for ports and pipelines including in Rakhine state, where Chinese businesses are spending billions of dollars.
The Chinese plan to end the crisis would start with a cease-fire in Rakhine “so that local residents can no longer be displaced,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a briefing in Beijing on Monday.
EU’s top diplomat ‘encouraged’ by Rohingya talks with Suu Kyi
EU’s top diplomat ‘encouraged’ by Rohingya talks with Suu Kyi
Power outages hit Ukraine and Moldova as Kyiv struggles against the winter cold
- Outages had been caused by a technical malfunction affecting power lines linking Ukraine and Moldova
- Blackouts were reported in Kyiv, as well as Zhytomyr and Kharkiv regions
KYIV: Emergency power cuts swept across several Ukrainian cities as well as neighboring Moldova on Saturday, officials said, amid a commitment from the Kremlin to US President Donald Trump to pause strikes on Kyiv as Ukraine battles one of its bleakest winters in years.
Ukraine’s Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the outages had been caused by a technical malfunction affecting power lines linking Ukraine and Moldova.
The failure “caused a cascading outage in Ukraine’s power grid,” triggering automatic protection systems, he said.
Blackouts were reported in Kyiv, as well as Zhytomyr and Kharkiv regions, in the center and northeast of the country respectively. The outage cut water supplies to the Ukrainian capital, officials said, while the city’s subway system was temporarily suspended because of low voltage on the network.
Moldova also experienced major power outages, including in the capital Chisinau, officials said.
“Due to the loss of power lines on the territory of Ukraine, the automatic protection system was triggered, which disconnected the electricity supply,” Moldova’s Energy Minister Dorin Junghietu said in a post on Facebook. “I encourage the population to stay calm until electricity is restored.”
Weaponizing winter
The large-scale outage followed weeks of Russian strikes against Ukraine’s already struggling energy grid, which have triggered long stretches of severe power shortages.
Moscow has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians heat, light and running water over the course of the war, in a strategy that Ukrainian officials describe as “weaponizing winter.”
While Russia has used similar tactics throughout the course of its almost four-year invasion of Ukraine, temperatures throughout this winter have fallen further than usual, bringing widespread hardship to civilians.
Forecasters say Ukraine will experience a brutally cold period stretching into next week. Temperatures in some areas will drop to minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit), Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.
Trump said late Thursday that President Vladimir Putin had agreed to a temporary pause in targeting Kyiv and other Ukrainian towns amid the extreme weather.
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this ... extraordinary cold,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. Putin has “agreed to that,” he said, without elaborating on when the request to the Russian leader was made.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a query seeking clarity about the scope and timing of any limited pause.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed Friday that Trump “made a personal request” to Putin to stop targeting Kyiv until Sunday “in order to create favorable conditions for negotiations.”
Talks are expected to take place between US, Russian and Ukrainian officials on Feb. 1 in Abu Dhabi. The teams previously met in late January in the first known time that officials from the Trump administration simultaneously met with negotiators from both Ukraine and Russia. However, it’s unclear many obstacles to peace remain. Disagreement over what happens to occupied Ukrainian territory, and Moscow’s demand for possession of territory it hasn’t captured, are a key issue holding up a peace deal, Zelensky said Thursday.
Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev said on social media Saturday that he was in Miami, where talks between Russian and US negotiators have previously taken place.
Russia struck Ukrainian energy assets in several regions on Thursday but there were no strikes on those facilities overnight, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday.
In a post on social media, Zelensky also noted that Russia has turned its attention to targeting Ukrainian logistics networks, and that Russian drones and missiles hit residential areas of Ukraine overnight, as they have most nights during the war.
Trump has framed Putin’s acceptance of the pause in strikes as a concession. But Zelensky was skeptical as Russia’s invasion approaches its fourth anniversary on Feb. 24 with no sign that Moscow is willing to reach a peace settlement despite a US-led push to end the fighting.
“I do not believe that Russia wants to end the war. There is a great deal of evidence to the contrary,” Zelensky said Thursday.
