Embattled Suu Kyi meets leaders

Manila: Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi faced rising global pressure on Tuesday to solve the crisis for her nation’s displaced Rohingya Muslim minority, meeting the UN chief and America’s top diplomat in the Philippines.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres told the Nobel laureate that hundreds of thousands of displaced Muslims who had fled to Bangladesh should be allowed to return to their homes in Myanmar.

“The secretary-general highlighted that strengthened efforts to ensure humanitarian access, safe, dignified, voluntary and sustained returns, as well as true reconciliation between communities, would be essential,” a UN statement said, summarising comments to Suu Kyi.

Mr Guterres’ comments came hours before Suu Kyi sat down with US secretary of state Rex Tillerson on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Manila.

Washington has been cautious in its statements on the situation in Rakhine, and has avoided outright criticism of Ms Suu Kyi. Supporters say she must navigate a path between outrage abroad  and popular feeling in a majority Buddhist country where most people believe the Rohingya are interlopers.

At a photo opportunity at the top of her meeting with Mr Tillerson, Ms Suu Kyi ignored a journalist who asked if the Rohingya were citizens of Myanmar.

At a later appearance after the meeting, Mr Tillerson — who is headed to Myanmar on Wednesday — was asked by reporters if he “had a message for Burmese leaders”.

He apparently ignored the question, replying only: “Thank you”, according to a pool report of the encounter.

More than 600,000 Rohingya have flooded into Bangladesh since late August.