YANGON: Myanmar said yesterday that it will not grant citizenship to Muslims identifying themselves as Rohingya, despite renewed pressure by the United Nations which describes the stateless minority as among the world’s most persecuted.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are estimated to live in Myanmar, mostly in western Rakhine state, which has been rocked by several bouts of deadly sectarian violence.
Myanmar views the Rohingya in Rakhine as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and denies them citizenship.
A resolution on Tuesday at the United Nations called on Myanmar’s government to give the Rohingya full access to citizenship and to end violence against them. But a presidential spokesman said Myanmar would not be pressured into changing its stance over the citizenship issue.
“We cannot give citizenship rights to those who are not in accord with the law, whatever the pressure. That is our sovereign right,” Ye Htut said in a post on his Facebook page, which he often uses to issue official remarks.
AFP
