Security expert Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hussain yesterday said Bangladesh's security may be undermined if the US provides military support to Myanmar's ethnic groups fighting the military junta.

The US Congress in December last year passed the Burma Unified through Rigorous Military Accountability (Burma) Act meant to provide support to the Myanmar people and civilian forces, including the National Unity Government and to punish the Myanmar junta.

Hussain, former election commissioner, said the Burma Act has a clause of providing non-lethal assistance.

"Using a liberal interpretation of the clause may allow the US to provide military support to the various ethnic armed organisations in Myanmar," he said at a colloquium, titled "Impacts of the 'Burma Act' on Bangladesh-Myanmar Bordering Region", organised by the Center for Peace Studies of the South Asian Institute of Policy and Governance at North South University.

"This may undermine Bangladesh's security as these groups have some ties to the same separatist factions operating in our country," he added.

National Unity Government (NUG) Minister of Health and Education Professor Zaw Wai Soe said the implementation of the Act does not rely on any one single superpower but on a multilateral response.

The NUG and ethnic groups in Myanmar now control about 80 percent of the territory. Soe said the NUG officially recognises the Rohingya as an ethnic group and is in favour of peaceful and full repatriation of the community from Bangladesh to Myanmar.

Bangladesh ambassador to Switzerland Mohammad Sufiur Rahman said the Arakan Army is a key player in the conflict.

Prof Shahidul Haque of SIPG, NSU, discussed ASEAN's role in the conflict and pointed to its repeated shortcomings in addressing the conflict in Myanmar, particularly regarding the ethnic minorities.

The seminar was moderated by Dr Sk Tawfique M Haque, director of SIPG.