Khamenei calls for action against Myanmar over Rohingya crackdown

TEHRAN: Iran' Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has called on Islamic governments to exert political and economic pressure on Myanmar’s “cruel” government to make it stop a deadly crackdown Rohingya Muslims in the , Press TV reported on Tuesday.

He called for practical measures by Islamic governments to end the crisis in Myanmar.

“Of course, practical measures don’t mean military deployments. Rather, they (Islamic governments) have to increase their political, economic, and trade pressure on Myanmar’s government and cry out against these crimes in international organizations,” Khanmenei said.

The Press TV reported Ayatollah Khamenei strongly criticized the silence and inaction of international bodies and self-proclaimed human rights advocates on those ongoing atrocities.

He said the crisis in Myanmar is a political issue and should not be reduced to a religious conflict between Muslims and Buddhists, although he said religious prejudice may have been involved.

“This is a political issue because the party that has been carrying out the atrocities is Myanmar’s government, at the top of which is a cruel woman who has won the Nobel Peace Prize. And with these incidents, the death of the Nobel Peace Prize has been spelled,” he said.

Ayatollah Khamenei said the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) should convene to discuss the crisis in Myanmar.

He said Iran has to be bold in making its stance known.

“The world today is the world of oppression, and the Islamic Republic has to maintain for itself the honor of speaking out against oppression anywhere in the world, whether in territories occupied by Zionists, or in Bahrain, or Yemen, or Myanmar,” he was quoted by the state-run TV as saying.