Malaysia's Anwar to host Myanmar leader in Rohingya deal — SkimNews
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- Anwar Ibrahim said he will invite Myanmar's Min Aung Hlaing for an official visit, conditioning the engagement on Myanmar accepting Rohingya returns — even though ASEAN has barred Myanmar's leaders from its summits since 2021 and refused to recognize its recent election.
- Myanmar's government has already accepted the return of 5,000 refugees with Malaysia bearing repatriation costs; a first-phase programme aims to send back 1,500 in September out of roughly 193,800 Myanmar refugees in Malaysia as of February.
- Anwar acknowledged the Rohingya's suffering but said Malaysia cannot host them permanently, framing the deal as "better diplomacy than just shouting angrily at Myanmar" given that Rohingya lack Myanmar citizenship.
- Min Aung Hlaing, a retired general who seized power in a 2021 coup, became president in April after an election dominated by an army-backed party; he has already visited Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, India, and Russia.
- ASEAN will not recognize Myanmar's government and a civil war has killed an estimated 100,000 people with the military widely accused of atrocities — yet Anwar said Malaysia still needs "an authority to negotiate with" on refugee returns.
- The UNHCR has stated it is not safe for refugees to return to Myanmar, creating direct tension with the repatriation push Anwar is now championing.
Why it matters: Malaysia is breaking from ASEAN's isolation playbook by inviting the very leader the bloc has barred from summits, betting that bilateral engagement produces refugee returns that multilateral pressure has not. The deal forces Anwar to negotiate with an unelected government ASEAN won't recognize and to push returns the UNHCR says are unsafe.
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