Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to highlight the need to put the Rohingya crisis on the agenda at forthcoming ASEAN summits.

The UK has been clear on the need for ASEAN countries to contribute to resolving the Rohingya crisis. Ministers and officials have raised the issue with all ASEAN members. The Malaysian and Indonesian Foreign Ministers took part in the Rakhine event which the Foreign Secretary hosted in New York during UN General Assembly Week. I raised Rakhine most recently during my interventions during the Asia-Europe Meeting in Naypyidaw on 20-21 November, which was attended by ministers from all ASEAN countries, and in bilaterals with ministers from Thailand and Brunei.

In advance of the most recent ASEAN Summit, held in the Philippines in November 2017, British embassies and High Commissions in ASEAN countries raised the importance of this issue with their hosts, urging that it be addressed at the Summit. Our understanding is that the Rohingya crisis was not formally on the agenda (which has to be agreed by all members, including Burma) but that it was discussed at length informally and in the margins of the Summit.