DHAKA/YANGON — Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed on Tuesday to complete within two years the return of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled an army crackdown last year in Myanmar.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), responding to the plan, said they were concerned about forcibly repatriating over 650,000 Rohingya who fled to neighboring Bangladesh after a conflict erupted in western Rakhine state in August.

Statements from the Myanmar and Bangladesh foreign ministries said Bangladesh would set up five transit camps on its side of the border. Those camps would send Rohingyas to two reception centers in Myanmar. The repatriation process would start next Tuesday, the statements said.

Myanmar said it would build a transit camp that can house 30,000 returnees.

The Bangladesh statement said: “Myanmar has reiterated its commitment to stop (the) outflow of Myanmar residents to Bangladesh.”

Mr. Guterres said the UNHCR had not been involved directly in the agreement.

“It will be very important to have UNHCR fully involved in the operation to guarantee that the operations abide by international standards,” he told reporters.

“A huge effort of reconciliation is needed to allow it to take place properly,” he added.

“The worst would be to move these people from camps in Bangladesh to camps in Myanmar, keeping an artificial situation for a long time and not allowing for them to regain their normal lives.”

Myanmar stressed the need for both sides to take preventive measures against possible Rohingya attacks and said it gave Dhaka a list with the names of 1,000 alleged militants.

The crisis erupted after Rohingya insurgent attacks on security posts on Aug. 25 in Rakhine triggered a fierce military response that the United Nations denounced as ethnic cleansing. Some 650,000 people fled the violence.

The military denies ethnic cleansing, saying its security forces mounted legitimate counter-insurgency clearance operations.

The Bangladesh statement called for repatriating orphans and “children born out of unwarranted incidence,” a reference to cases of rape resulting in pregnancy, said a Bangladesh foreign ministry official who declined to be identified.

The rape of Rohingya women by Myanmar’s security forces was widespread, according to interviews with women conducted at displacement camps by UN medics and activists. The military denies it was involved in any sexual assaults.

A UNHCR spokesman said on Tuesday the Rohingya should return voluntarily only when they feel it is safe to do so.

“Major challenges have to be overcome,” UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic told a news briefing in Geneva.

“These include ensuring they are told about the situation in their areas of origin… and are consulted on their wishes, that their safety is ensured.”

The United States expressed similar concerns.

“The timeline is less important to us than the ability for people to safely and voluntarily go home,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

Ms. Nauert, who visited the region last year, noted that it has only been a few months since large numbers of Rohingya fled their homes.

“I can’t imagine anyone would feel safe at this point in returning,” she said, adding that the people she met were frail, scared and in no way ready to return.

Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay told Reuters last week the returnees could apply for citizenship “after they pass the verification process.”

Myanmar does not recognize its Rohingya minority as citizens, rendering them effectively stateless.

Myint Kyaing, permanent secretary at Myanmar’s Ministry of Labor, Immigration and Population, told Reuters this month that Myanmar would begin processing at least 150 people a day through each of the two camps by Jan. 23.

The meeting that concluded on Tuesday in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyitaw, was the first for a joint working group set up to hammer out the details of a November repatriation agreement.

Left out of the talks were the fears and concerns of the refugees themselves, “as if they are an inert mass of people who will go where and when they are told,” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, told Reuters in an e-mail.

‘LIVING LIKE PRISONERS’
A group of refugees at the Kutupalong Rohingya camp near Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh expressed doubt about the camps Myanmar has agreed to establish on its side of the border.

Mohammad Farouk, 20, who arrived in Bangladesh following the Aug. 25 attacks, said exchanging one camp for another made little difference — except “the camps in Myanmar will be far worse, because we will be confined there and there will be a risk to our lives.”

Another resident of the Kutupalong camp compared the new transit camps to ones set up near the Rakhine state capital of Sittwe following bouts of violence in previous years “where people are living like prisoners.”

“First, ask the military to give those Rohingya their homes and property back, then talk to us about returning,” said the Rohingya refugee, who did not want to be identified.

Some said the kind of violence they witnessed toward their community in Myanmar made it hard for them to trust the military.

“Even if I don’t get food or anything else here, at least there is safety. I won’t feel safe if I go back to Myanmar,” said Rashid Ahmed, 33.

Some young men in the camp worried they might be arrested on accusations of terrorism if they returned to Myanmar.

Camp conditions in Bangladesh are dire enough, but more than 520,000 Rohingya children are at even greater risk ahead of the cyclone season that generally begins in April, the United Nations Children’s Fund said on Tuesday.

“They will face an even greater risk of disease, flooding, landslides and further displacement,” said Edouard Beigbeder, the United Nations Children’s Fund Representative in Bangladesh.

Nearly one million Rohingya live in Bangladesh, including those who came after previous displacements dating back to the 1990s. — Reuters

VANCOUVER — Twenty nations agreed on Tuesday to consider tougher sanctions to press North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Pyongyang it could trigger a military response if it did not choose negotiations.

A US-hosted meeting of countries that backed South Korea during the 1950-53 Korea War also vowed to support renewed dialogue between the two Koreas “in hopes that it leads to sustained easing of tensions” and agreed that a diplomatic solution to the crisis was both essential and possible.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has refused to give up development of nuclear missiles capable of hitting the United States in spite of increasingly severe UN sanctions, raising fears of a new war on the Korean peninsula.

The United States and Canada co-hosted the day-long meeting in Vancouver to discuss ways to increase pressure on Kim.

US officials have reported a debate within the Trump administration over whether to give more active consideration to military options, such as a preemptive strike on a North Korean nuclear or missile site.

Mr. Tillerson brushed off a question about such a “bloody nose” strike, telling a closing news conference: “I’m not going to comment on issues that have yet to be decided among the National Security Council or the president.”

However, he said the threat posed by North Korea was growing.

“We all need to be very sober and clear-eyed about the current situation… We have to recognize that the threat is growing and if North Korea does not chose the pathway of engagement, discussion, negotiation, then they themselves will trigger an option,” Mr. Tillerson said.

“Our approach is, in terms of having North Korea choose the correct step, is to present them with what is the best option — talks are the best option; that when they look at the military situation, that’s not a good outcome for them,” he added.

“It is time to talk, but they have to take the step to say they want to talk.”

The Vancouver meeting pledged to ensure that UN sanctions already in place were fully implemented and the participants said in a joint statement they agreed “to consider and take steps to impose unilateral sanctions and further diplomatic actions that go beyond those required by UN Security Council resolutions.” They gave no details.

Mr. Tillerson said all countries needed to work together to improve interdiction of ships attempting to skirt sanctions and said there must be “new consequences” for North Korea “whenever new aggression occurs.”

He said the meeting had agreed that China and Russia, which did not attend the Vancouver talks, must fully implement UN sanctions.

US officials say discussion of a military strike option has lost some momentum since North and South Korea held formal talks for the first time in two years this month and Pyongyang said it would send athletes to the Winter Olympics that South Korea will host next month.

‘NOT TIME FOR REWARD’
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said in Vancouver that the world should not be naive about North Korea’s “charm offensive” in engaging in talks with the South.

“It is not the time to ease pressure, or to reward North Korea,” he said. “The fact that North Korea is engaging in dialogue could be interpreted as proof that the sanctions are working.”

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said she hoped the dialogue would continue well beyond the Olympics, but stressed that existing sanctions must be applied more rigorously.

Mr. Tillerson said North Korea must not be allowed “to drive a wedge” through allied resolve or solidarity and reiterated Washington’s rejection of a Chinese-Russian proposal for the United States and South Korea to freeze military exercises in return for a freeze in North Korea’s weapons programs.

A senior State Department official said US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis briefed the Vancouver participants over dinner on Monday and stressed the US preference for a diplomatic solution, while keeping a military option on the table.

“It was a chance to raise people’s confidence that we have thought through this, that we definitely prefer a diplomatic solution,” the official said.

Russia and China have been accused of not fully implementing the UN sanctions, something they deny. They have sharply criticized the Vancouver meeting.

China’s main English-language newspaper, the China Daily, said the meeting was “poorly conceived” and would prove counter-productive.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, speaking on Tuesday in the West African state of Sao Tome, said everyone should cherish the present easing of tension on the Korean peninsula.

But history shows that each time tensions ease, there could be interference or backsliding, Mr. Wang added.

“Now is the time to test each side’s sincerity,” he said.

“The international community must keep its eyes wide open, and see who is really the promoter of a peaceful resolution to the peninsula nuclear issue and who will become the saboteur who causes a return to tensions.”

A US official said Susan Thornton, the State Department’s senior diplomat for East Asia, would travel to Beijing from Vancouver to brief China on the outcome.

He said he expected Mr. Tillerson to provide readouts to his Russian and Chinese counterparts. — Reuters