Bangladesh for peaceful solution with Myanmar amid border tension

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal today said mortar shelling issue will be resolved through mutual talks with Myanmar as Bangladesh is a peace-loving country. 

But the country's military is always ready to respond to provocation, he warned on Wednesday after a high-level meeting at his ministry conference room because of repeated mortar shell firing on Bangladesh territory from Myanmar.

He sat with the chiefs of the armed forces, Border Guard Bangladesh and Coast Guard, and top officials of the law-enforcement agencies and the foreign ministry.

"Our Prime Minister is not in the country. We are observing a situation that Myanmar Army is engaged in war with Arakan Army, which ammunition is coming across the border to our country," he said.

"After the meeting, we have come to the conclusion that our national policy is friendship to all and malice towards none. We alwaysdiscourage war," he said.

"Not a single Rohingya will be allowed to enter Bangladesh. The Border Guard Bangladesh and law enforcing agencies are also working to this end," he said.

 “This is not our issue. It’s Myanmar’s internal affairs. We don’t interfere in such issues,” Kamal said oln the issue of Myanmar forces fighting rebels along the border.

However, shells have landed in Bangladesh a number of times recently. Myanmar planes and helicopters also violated Bangladesh’s airspace.

A Rohingya teenager sheltering in a strip of land between Bangladesh and Myanmar died in the explosion of a shell while a Bangladeshi man lost a leg in a landmine blast.

Residents of the areas along the border in Bandarban said they were in panic with no improvement in the situation despite calls by Bangladesh for calm.

The foreign ministry summoned the Myanmar ambassador to lodge protests several times. The Myanmar foreign ministry, however, blamed the rebels for the incidents.

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on Tuesday termed Myanmar’s recent mortar shelling inside Bangladesh “unintentional mistake”.