Arakan Army (AA) is led by a politically sophisticated and clever tactician named Major General Twan Mrat Naing or Tun Myat Niang.

He once said that the Myanmar government agreed on repatriation of the Rohingya, which it called Bengali. And the word repatriation means “the return of someone to their own country”. If this is so the Myanmar government accepts them as civilians and also should treat them as citizens and give them the rights they deserved.

As such, the AA would only move with caution on Rohingya issue and not about to toe the racist indoctrination line of the Tatmadaw and Myanmar government. The AA is not about to put its hands on an international condemnation chopping board, which the quasi-civilian-military government is now enduring with pain and shame.

He was said to be warned by China not to be in relation with the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), to which he replied that the AA didn’t consider the ARSA to be an ethnic resistance group but a religious oriented set up and thus it will have nothing to do with it. Also a smart way of going about in answering the question posed.