She called for understanding as the country has a raft of serious problems to tackle.

There following were Aung San Suu Kyi’s comments on the Muslim minority controversy.

“What we want to do is avoid any terms that will just add fuel to the fire. I wasn’t talking about one particular term, I was talking about all the terms that are incendiary and which are used by our people in the Rakhine, and of course elsewhere too.

“Now the reason why I said we have to be firm about not using emotive terms is because emotive terms make it very difficult for us to find a peaceful and sensible resolution of our problems. There are two terms which are emotive and you have to face them fairly and squarely. The Rakhine Buddhists object to the word Rohingya just as much as the Muslims object to the term Bengali, because these have all kinds of political and emotional implications which are unacceptable to the opposite parties. All we are asking is that people should be aware of the difficulties we are facing and give us enough space to sort out our problems. If there is insistence by either party, either on the part of the Rakhine Buddhists or on the part of the Muslims to insist on particular terms, knowing full well these will create more animosity, this does not help our finding a resolution to the problem. What we want is to find a practical resolution. We are not interested in rhetoric, we are not trying to out-talk anyone, we are trying to say any particular stand regarding the Rohingya is better than another, what we are saying is that there are more important things for us to cope with than the issue of the Rohingya. I know that is important because it is to do with identity, and identity is of extreme importance to peoples all over the world. We are not in any way undermining people’s desire to establish their own identity. What we are asking for is that those who really wish us well should be aware of the implications of terms that are used quite perhaps unwittingly, not knowing the implications for those of us who have to cope with the actual problems that arise from this disagreement over what name to use.

“We are trying to find a solution to this problem, and while we are trying to find a solution, we would like our friend to be helpful, to understand that we are not trying to do down any particular group, but we are trying to find some way forward that will be acceptable to both. That is very difficult, I am not denying that, and if our well-wishers are not ready to cooperate with us, it will make our task that much more difficult, which is not to say we are going to back away from it. We will still accept it as our responsibility and will try to do the best we can to resolve the problem to the benefit of both communities.”