Britain's Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt tweeted Thursday that Myanmar officials should be held responsible for their country's Rohingya crisis before the International Criminal Court.
Hunt's comments, referring to Myanmar as Burma, came after he met Thursday with embattled Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a high-profile state visit to the country.
The visit followed Tuesday's release of a United Nations report that criticized Suu Kyi's handling of the crisis. The report details why several Myanmar generals should be prosecuted for genocide against the Rohingya minority, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
It also accuses military leaders of extrajudicial killings, rape, and razing Rohingya villages in Rakhine, from which more than 700,000 Rohingya were forced to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.
Hunt arrived in Yangon Wednesday for a two-day visit. He said he planned to meet with military and civilian leaders. He met in the capital of Naypyidaw with Aung San Suu Kyi and said she would look into crisis-related issues that were discussed, including two Reuters journalists who were sentenced to 7-year prison terms earlier this month.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were convicted on September 3 of violating a colonial-era law on state secrets in a landmark case that was viewed as a test of progress toward democracy in Myanmar.
Hunt also met early Thursday with local Muslims in northern Rakhine state, where he "mainly observed the planned repatriation process," Rakhine State Minister U Chan Tha told VOA.
On Wednesday, U.N. advisor on the Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng told reporters in New York Myanmar "may constitute certainly a threat to international peace and security."
"We have seen such mass exodus of people from Myanmar to Bangladesh," said Dieng, "and this is still, in fact, continuing ... which means, although the level of violence is now less, I would say [it is more] intense than before."
Dieng urged U.N. member states who have not ratified the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to do so at the 70th anniversary of the convention on December 9.
