The US has offered to partner with India in a joint effort to assist Bangladesh in tackling the Rohingya crisis.

“We think India also has an interest in seeing this situation resolved,” a senior US administration official said, reported Indian newspaper The Hindu on Monday.

“We will look for ways to work with India to provide for the needs of the Rohingya in Bangladesh, but also to work together to create that pressure on Burma [Myanmar] to create the conditions required for their safe and voluntary return,” added the official, calling India a “like-minded” partner.

Nearly 700,000 Rohingyas have fled violence in Myanmar's Rakhine State into Bangladesh since late August last year. The UN said the violence bears hallmarks of genocide, but they could not take any effective steps yet due to opposition from Russia and China.

While the US has called the action of Myanmar authorities a case of “ethnic cleansing” and threatened targeted sanctions against the officials responsible, India has been comparatively silent on the issue in an effort to keep its ties with Naypyitaw intact, the report mentioned.

Repatriation of the Rohingyas has not started yet, though Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a bilateral deal in November last year.

Meanwhile, the UN on March 16 launched an appeal for $950 million for humanitarian assistance for 10 months until December this year. 

The US offer to partner with India was made during a recent regional visit to Dhaka, Cox's Bazar, Delhi, Kabul and Islamabad by Deputy Assistant to US President Donald Trump and Director for South and Central Asia Lisa Curtis as well as Director for India and the Indian Ocean Basant Sanghera.

After meeting officials of the UN, other aid agencies and Bangladesh officials from March 1 to 4, the US delegation met Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale and other officials on March 5, in an unpublicised visit to Delhi.

Gokhale met Curtis and State Department officials during his visit to Washington last week, where cooperation on Bangladesh was discussed, The Hindu reported.

Gokhale is now expected to visit Dhaka in April, while a number of ministers will visit Bangladesh in the next few months to “take the development partnership agenda to its conclusion”, an external affairs ministry official of India said.

While the official accepted that the US proposal for a joint effort to aid Bangladesh was being discussed at the foreign secretary level, the ministry declined to comment on whether the US and India would work on joint measures to “pressure” Myanmar to repatriate the Rohingyas.

The US proposal to India may be seen as an attempt to counter China that had last year brokered a repatriation agreement signed by Bangladesh and Myanmar, the report added.