DHAKA, Bangladesh

Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing met with Muhammad Yunus, head of the Bangladeshi transitional government, amid the latter's efforts to begin the long-awaited Rohingya repatriation.

Hlaing, Myanmar's senior military general and prime minister, called Yunus on Friday at the latter's hotel on the sidelines of the sixth BIMSTEC Summit, which was held in Thailand's capital Bangkok, according to a statement issued on Yunus' official Facebook account on Saturday.

During their meeting, Yunus expressed his condolences and sympathy to the people of Myanmar following the tragic loss of life caused by the March 28 earthquakes.

Bangladesh earlier sent two phases of humanitarian aid to Myanmar. They also discussed the deployment of Bangladeshi rescue teams to Myanmar in response to the disaster.

“We remain ready to provide further humanitarian support. Our ships are ready,” said Yunus.

The meeting took place as Myanmar identified 180,000 Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh as eligible for repatriation, with 550,000 more being processed as soon as possible, according to a statement issued by Bangladesh's interim government on Friday.

Bangladesh is hosting over 1.3 million Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, who fled a Myanmar crackdown in 2017.

​​​​​​​Rohingya are natives of the Rakhine state in Myanmar, but successive regimes in the Buddhist-majority Southeast Asian nation have denied them the nation's citizenship among other rights.