am, Thailand, February 27, SPA--South-east Asian foreign ministers on Friday agreed to a regional approach to the Rohingya refugeee problem that has called attention to the region's approach to handling human rights, according to DPA. "Each country will share the information about the Rohingyas, as we've been told it's a complex issue," Association of South-EAst Asian Nations (ASEAN) secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said. The Rohingya, a stateless minority group from Myanmar's Arakan State, have become an issue on the sidelines of the 14th Summit of ASEAN being held this weekend in Cha-am, 130 kilometres south-west of Bangkok. This summit is seeking to launch an ASEAN human rights body to address problems that have dogged the region such as refugees, human trafficking, statelessness of minority groups and abuse of political prisoners. Myanmar, ASEAN's bad boy for human rights abuses and its failure to introduce democratic reforms, is at the heart of the Rohingya problem as well.
