Dhaka: Bangladesh’s ambassador to Myanmar on Thursday refuted Myanmar's claim that most of the migrants found abandoned at sea recently were from the country, reports Channel NewsAsia.

The recent migrant crisis had placed several countries in the region, including Bangladesh, under the spotlight. Myanmar claims most of the migrants rescued were not from its country but from neighbouring Bangladesh.

Myanmar recently brought ashore more than 900 migrants from two separate boats, and it said indications were that most of them were Bangladeshis.

Speaking publicly for the first time on Thursday on the issue at a briefing held by Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry for the diplomatic community in Yangon, Bangladesh’s ambassador to Myanmar Mohammad Sufiur Rahman said the first batch of 200 migrants had been repatriated. But he drew attention to the number who were said to be from Bangladesh.

‘The numbers are very interesting; we don’t believe that these 200 or 700 conclusively determine the nature, composition of these people,’ said the ambassador.

‘We believe that to form a better understanding, we need to examine the entire spectrum of rescued people in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar together. We have to examine that in a longer perspective to understand the root causes and based on that, the international community should be able to form a very clear understanding as to where these people are coming and why they are coming.

‘These are the things we need to examine with a lot of care, seriousness, without getting involved into finger-pointing, without being unfair to a particular country or a group of people, without being unfair to a particular community, and at the same time upholding the spirit of cooperation between all of our countries.’

‘Not an occasion to finger-point’

Myanmar maintained that holistic and pragmatic approaches were needed to solve the migrant problem.

‘We have a very good cooperation between the two governments so that’s why after their verification process for the first 200 people, they have decided to take them, those who were verified, back to the country,’ said Myanmar Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin.

‘I cannot tell you about who is finger-pointing at who. This is not an occasion to finger-point at each other. But for the people, exit point and for the people who come out of the country, this is the responsibility of each and every country.’

Those at the briefing hope the nations involved will follow up on the results achieved at last month’s meeting in Bangkok.

‘This is probably the time that we should see how we can move the result of the meeting forward in a constructive manner,’ said Thai ambassador to Myanmar Pisanu Suvanajata.

‘All the participating countries and international organisations can come up with constructive and concrete results and it’s very comprehensive.  So once we can agree on that, we should see that all stakeholders should develop action plans for that. At least at this time, we have political wills to resolve the problems together and I think that is a very concrete step to move forward.’

Moving forward seems to be what Myanmar wants as well as this is the second briefing in less than two weeks that Myanmar has updated the diplomatic corps on the migrant problem.  Malaysia is expected to call an emergency ASEAN meeting regarding irregular migration.  The date has not been set but Myanmar said it supports that gathering and will actively participate and cooperate fully in that meeting.