A team from Myanmar will arrive in Bangladesh on December 19 to take forward the process of forming a joint working group for the repatriation of Rohingya refugees.

Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque said this after a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris yesterday.

A joint working group was supposed to be in place within three weeks of signing the "arrangement" on the return of Rohingyas.

Earlier, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali said Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed to take assistance from the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, in the process of repatriating the forcibly displaced Rohingyas to their homeland.

"The signing of the arrangement is an initial step... there are more steps," he said.

On November 23, Bangladesh and Myanmar signed an “Arrangement on Return of Displaced Persons from Rakhine State” on behalf of “residents of Rakhine State” who crossed from Myanmar into Bangladesh after October 9, 2016 and August 25, 2017.