“We have encouraged the Burma government to restart the process. They have agreed and are looking for an appropriate time to restart the process,” Haque recently told The Myanmar Times.

“We would like to see the Burma’s nationals who are in Bangladesh return under safe conditions, voluntarily, back to their home. They can start a healthy and productive life in their own country.”

Burma and Bangladesh reached an agreement to resume the program during the annual foreign office consultations in Naypyitaw from June 12-17, according to the foreign secretary.

“A time frame for the implementation of the process has not yet been agreed upon and was contingent on many factors.”

Dhaka has been pushing for a resumption of the program since Burma refused to extend the original agreement past 2005. The process stopped completely in July 2005 after the Burma government refused to extend the deadline continuing to block some repatriation efforts. Plans to restart it in 2009 were stalled after about 9000 refugees cleared for repatriation refused to return.

Burma still refuses to recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic group, calling them Bengalis that implies they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and arrived during or after British occupation.

Bangladesh also refuses to recognize the term and objected when being interviewed, insisting they be called “undocumented Myanmar nationals”.

“We are willing to go back to Arakan state if we get our appropriate rights like other ethnic groups,” a Rohingya refugee teacher said.

“We have been living in Bangladesh refugee camp from 1991-92, but we don’t see our future. We are living in a big jail. We urgently want a durable solution.”

Large numbers entered Bangladesh in 1978 and again in 1991-92, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). More have sought refuge in Bangladesh and were turned away during the October and June clashes in Arakan state last year.

Bangladesh estimates there are about 30,000 documented refugees living in two camps in Cox’s Bazar.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Dipu Moni told a June parliamentary session that more than 500,000 of Burma’s refugees have entered the country illegally.

Haque told The Myanmar Times that he was unaware of anti-Muslim sentiments in Burma despite the recent outbreaks of violence towards the religious minority that has drawn international condemnation.

Refugees are very afraid that Bangladesh will forcibly repatriate the Rohingya refugees like they did before.

“If the situation is stable in Arakan State, we will go back, no need to agree for repatriation. (But) We have been denied the right of citizenship by the Burmese government,” said one refugee.

“We are surprised. Thousands of Rohingyas have been displaced and many were killed. The situation is going from bad to worse day by day. Why the Bangladesh government would proposes to the Burmese government to repatriate the Rohingya refugees?