Myanmar’s main opposition party today urged the government to reconsider a proposal to refer to the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority not by their self-identified name but as the ‘Muslim community in Rakhine state’.

The phrasing chosen by Myanmar’s government, which is led by Aung San Suu Kyi, would be used to describe the approximately 1 million Muslims who are among the most persecuted minority groups in the world, according to the United Nations.

The main opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party led by former president Thein Sein said in a statement the new term would cause unnecessary problems between communities in the western state.

The Arakan National Party (ANP), a powerful political group in Rakhine state, said on Tuesday it would continue to describe the Rohingya as ‘Bengali Muslims’, because it said they are illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.

“(The government’s proposed) term would efface the origin of these Bengalis and (suggest) that these people are Rakhine natives,” said a statement by the party.

The ANP won a majority of seats in Rakhine state in last year’s general election.

On Monday, Suu Kyi told a UN human rights envoy that the government would refer to the Rohingya as the “Muslim community in Rakhine state” instead of the “Rohingya” or “Bengali Muslims”.

Yanghee Lee, the envoy, arrived in Yangon on Sunday to compile a report to submit to the UN General Assembly in September.

The 12-day trip is her fourth visit to Myanmar and the first since the current government, led by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, took power in late March.

- dpa