Myanmar's announcement that it would repatriate 300,000 Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh and 5,000 from Malaysia — relayed by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in late July — was immediately contradicted by Bangladeshi officials, who said no such proposal had been formally made to Dhaka. Analysts say the episode fits a pattern stretching back to 2017, when Myanmar's military drove more than 750,000 Rohingya (a stateless Muslim minority) into Bangladesh through operations the UN described as ethnic cleansing; since then, bilateral memoranda, UN-mediated agreements, and a Chinese-brokered pilot programme have all produced commitments that were never implemented. With the Arakan Army now controlling roughly 90 percent of Rakhine State — including the districts where most Rohingya formerly lived — Myanmar lacks both the territorial control and the legal conditions, such as citizenship guarantees and freedom of movement, necessary to carry out any credible large-scale return.