Suu Kyi: Myanmar ready to verify refugee status

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Myanmar's State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday said Myanmar stood ready to verify the status of the fleeing Rohingya Muslims "at any time" and reached out to the global community for help end the refugee crisis engulfing the Rakhine state.

"We are prepared to start the verification process at any time," said Suu Kyi. She made the remarks in her first address to the nation, from the capital Naypyitaw, since attacks by Rohingya Muslim insurgents on August 25 led to military response, which then forced more than 410,000 Rohingya Muslims into neighboring Bangladesh.

The 72-year-old said she “feels deeply” for the suffering of "all people" caught up in the conflict in Rakhine state and condemned all human rights violations and all actions that undermine the rule of law.

Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi delivers a national address in Naypyidaw on September 19, 2017. /AFP Photo

“We condemn all human rights violations and unlawful violence. We are committed to the restoration of peace and stability and rule of law throughout the state,” Suu Kyi said

The State Counselor said that even with an estimated 410,000 Muslims fleeing to Bangadesh, the "great majority" of Muslims within the conflict zone stayed and that "more than 50 percent of their villages were intact."

Myanmar does not fear international scrutiny and has invited international agencies to visit the conflict-stricken Rakhine state and explore why people fled, she added.

“We want to find out why this exodus is happening. We would like to talk to those who have fled as well as those who have stayed. I think it is very little known that a great majority of Muslims in the Rakhine state have not joined the exodus.”

Rohingya refugees wait under rain at Kutupalong refugee camp in the Bangladeshi locality of Ukhia on September 19, 2017. /AFP Photo

Suu Kyi canceled her trip to the UN General Assembly amid outrage over the crisis.

There have been reports the military burned some Rohingya's villages, which is denied by the military. Meanwhile, the United Nations has said that the military campaign amounts to "ethnic cleansing." Hours before Suu Kyi’s national address, western powers urged her to push for an end to the violence.

Nobel laureate Suu Kyi's electoral triumph two years ago had been hailed as a victory for democracy by western officials. But she had been nearly silent until Tuesday, drawing mounting international criticism for failure to end the crisis.

Western officials and human rights groups have been especially disheartened as they had campaigned for years for Suu Kyi's freedom. She spent the larger part of two decades under house arrest by a military junta before her release in 2010.

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