Thai Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Tanasak Patimapragorn (centre) poses for a group picture with delegates from 17 nations and observers during an international meeting on migration in the Indian Ocean in Bangkok on Friday.

* International meeting on migrant crisis under way in Bangkok

* Around 2,600 migrants may still be adrift in SE Asia seas

Reuters/Bangkok

Myanmar insisted it was not to blame for Southeast Asia's latest influx of "boat people" at a regional crisis meeting on Friday, as the US said thousands of vulnerable migrants adrift at sea needed urgent rescue.

More than 3,000 migrants have landed in Indonesia and Malaysia since Thailand launched a crackdown on human trafficking gangs this month. About 2,600 are believed to be still adrift in boats, relief agencies have said.

While some of the migrants are Bangladeshis escaping poverty at home, many are members of Myanmar's 1.1mn Rohingya Muslim minority who live in apartheid-like conditions in the country's Rakhine state.

"You cannot single out my country," Htein Lin, director general at Myanmar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and head of the country's delegation to Friday's meeting in Bangkok, said in his opening remarks. "In the influx of migration, Myanmar is not the only country."

The region was suffering from a human trafficking problem, he said, and Myanmar would cooperate with regional and international efforts to find "practical mechanisms" to deal with it.

Myanmar does not consider the Rohingya citizens, rendering them effectively stateless, while denying it discriminates against them or that they are fleeing persecution. It does not call them Rohingya but refers to them as Bengalis, indicating they are from Bangladesh.

The Bangkok gathering brings together 17 countries from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and elsewhere in Asia, along with the US, Switzerland and international bodies such as the UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency.

Host Thailand said the meeting's three objectives were: to provide humanitarian assistance; to combat the long-term problems of people smuggling; and to address the root causes of the problem.

"More than ever, we need a concerted effort by all countries concerned," Thai Foreign Minister General Tanasak Patimapragorn said in an opening address. "It needs both Thai and international cooperation to solve the problem comprehensively."

Delicate issue

One delegate said Myanmar was pushing for other participants not to use the term "Rohingya" and that most were respecting Myanmar's request, although he added that the country's mere presence in the Thai capital represented progress.

"It's a very delicate issue for Myanmar and it requires cooperation and dialogue for all of us to be able to find a solution," said the delegate, who declined to be identified.

But Volker Turk, Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at the UNHCR, said the deadly pattern of migration across the Bay of Bengal could only be ended if Myanmar addressed the root causes.

"This will require full assumption of responsibility from Myanmar to all its people," he said. "Granting of citizenship is the ultimate goal."

Some participants have cautioned that the meeting was unlikely to produce a binding agreement or plan of action, given many attendees, including those from Myanmar, Indonesia and Malaysia, were not ministerial-level.

Officially called the Special Meeting on Irregular Migration in the Indian Ocean, the gathering takes place against the grim backdrop of Malaysia's discovery of nearly 140 graves at 28 suspected people smuggling camps strung along its northern border. Thai authorities earlier found 36 bodies in abandoned camps on their side of the border, which led to the crackdown.

Malaysia said it was exploring the possibility of a holding a summit meeting within the next few weeks for the leaders of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Myanmar.

"This is with a view to finding a workable solution to the crisis at hand," Ibrahim Abdullah, deputy secretary general at Malaysia's foreign affairs ministry, told the meeting.