Pakistan only issuing passports to Rohingya, not giving them citizenship: Interior minister

DHAKA, Bangladesh

Pakistan on Wednesday said it is “only issuing” passports to displaced members of the Rohingya community, not granting them citizenship, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said.

“We are not giving them citizenship. But we are giving them passports with a different code or serial number so that they can be identified as Rohingya,” Naqvi said following a meeting with his Bangladeshi counterpart Jahangir Alam Chowdhury in Dhaka, according to a Bangladeshi Home Ministry statement.

Pakistan’s metropolis of Karachi is home to more than 400,000 Rohingya Muslims — the largest number after Myanmar and Bangladesh, which hosts more than a million members of the persecuted Muslim community, according to unofficial estimates.

Pakistan issues passports to Rohingya for settlement in third countries.

Naqvi’s trip to Bangladesh is the first official visit since Pakistan's then-Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani visited in 2012.

Seeking Pakistan's cooperation in the repatriation of the Rohingya, Chowdhury said Bangladesh has given shelter to 1.3 million Rohingya refugees “for the sake of humanity, which is a burden for a developing country like Bangladesh.”

Since 2017, over 1 million Rohingya have fled persecution and violence in Myanmar.

On the bilateral front, Chowdhury said Dhaka and Islamabad are in the final stages of signing a memorandum of understanding for the issuance of visa-on-arrival for diplomatic and official passport holders of the two countries — a practice that was suspended after the 1971 war, which resulted in the liberation of Bangladesh.

The construction of a new Bangladeshi Embassy building in Pakistan “is underway,” he added.

Chowdhury and Naqvi also discussed combating drugs, terrorism, and cybercrime, as well as police training and increasing bilateral trade.

Bilateral ties between Pakistan and Bangladesh have improved in recent months.