The United States is assessing if ethnic cleansing or genocide has taken place against Rohingya populace in the Rakhine state of Myanmar by the security forces of that country, and action will follow after the assessment, the state department has said. According to US media reports, Myanmar’s ambassador to Washington was summoned to the state department on Wednesday over this issue. However, Heather Nauert, spokesperson of the department, described it as a meeting which featured ‘tough conversation about a tough situation’.

Meanwhile, Washington is dispatching its special representative and policy coordinator for Burma (Myanmar) Patrick Murphy, also a deputy assistant secretary, to Naypidaw to discuss the crisis with the officials.

“I can only say that we are assessing the situation on the ground. There is still – I mean, despite the horrific pictures that you’ve seen and the reporting and some of the harrowing details that you’ve read about, there’s still not a lot of information that, as a government, we’ve been able to independently verify, in terms of from our own people being able to ask those questions and getting enough good answers, solid answers that are verifiable,” spokesperson Nauert told a daily press briefing on Thursday at the state department while replying to a question regarding ethnic cleansing or genocide in Rakhine state by the Myanmar security forces.

“In addition to that, we’ve been working with a lot of partners on the ground. But as you know –well know – the humanitarian situation has been difficult. While there are some people there, there are certainly not enough. We work with a lot of those humanitarian organizations on the ground to try to get additional information, but we just don’t have enough just yet. But I know that that is all being assessed and reviewed,” she said.

Responding to a volley of questions in this regard, the

spokesperson said that the US administration is assessing to make sure and the assessment involves meeting of so many criteria. “It’s not as simple as you want to make it right now, but I can tell you it’s under review. We are passionate about this issue; we care about this issue. We have had folks engaged in this for many years. This has not just started all of a sudden. This has been unfolding for decades now. But we are certainly focused on it now, as we were before, and we’ll continue to work on this”, she said.

Asked if the proof of ethnic cleansing is found what the US’s responsibility would be, the spokesperson said, “It’s a – that’s a hypothetical. I’m just not going to get into that.”

When asked what the state department does in situations where ethnic cleansing has been found, Nauert said, “Well, I think you’ve seen our action in the past. I think you’ve seen how much we care about issues such as that in the past. It’s under review, and that’s all I can say about it, okay.”

When asked how long the review will take, she said, “I’m never going to give you a timeline on how long a review will take. We will do a review until we have sufficient information and until we can provide good solid information with evidence – that is backed by evidence.”

About the summoning of Myanmar ambassador, the spokesperson said, “I just want to clarify though, so we’re clear, we didn’t call him in as in the official call-in. They agreed to a meeting. The ambassador came here and then they had what was described to me as a tough conversation, obviously, about a tough situation.”

Asked if the ambassador gave any assurances, she said, “If they did, I am not aware of that. But I think it’s a good sign that we have had a very highly engaged dialogue with the government there, between the ambassadors – our U.S. ambassador who is serving in Burma – he’s had a lot of conversations with representatives of the government there.” Our deputy assistant secretary has as well. This is an issue we are very passionate about and we continue to work on it. Deputy assistant secretary Murphy will be heading to Burma sometime this weekend for a trip next week, and he will be meeting with government officials, Nauert said, adding that among the things that he will be pressing for will be additional humanitarian access, reporter access, and expressing concern about the state of the Rohingyas. Asked if Murphy will visit Bangladesh, she said that she is not aware of that.

On Bangladesh, Nauert said, “We have been pretty clear in thanking the government of Bangladesh for accepting so many of the Rohingya into their country to provide them at least a safer place.”

Asked if secretary of state Rex Tillerson spoke to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi on this issue, she replied, “Not at this point.” The spokesperson, when asked if the secretary of state has any plan to meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during her stay in New York to attend 72nd session of the United Nations general assembly, said, “I’m not aware of that on his schedule.”