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 "The operation is starting. They will be taken to a safe
destination," Information Minister Ye Htut told Reuters by
telephone, adding that the migrants had been provided with food and
water. He would not disclose that location due to "security and
safety concerns".
Earlier, Ye Htut had said Myanmar's navy was taking the converted
fishing boat to Bangladeshi waters - prompting its neighbor to
underline that it would take back only those who were genuinely its
citizens - but he later clarified his remarks to say the
verification process would take place first.
The migrants were found drifting in the Andaman Sea on Friday in an
overloaded fishing boat that was taking on water.
They are the among an estimated 2,000 people, mostly Rohingya
Muslims from Myanmar and Bangladeshis, the UN said could still be at
sea after being abandoned by people-smuggling gangs since a
crackdown started last month in Thailand.
A three-star Thai general accused of involvement in human
trafficking turned himself in to authorities on Tuesday, the most
high profile among scores of suspects wanted as part of the drive to
snuff out an illicit business that has boomed in recent years.
Police say 51 arrests have been made so far in a campaign that has
also brought the grim discovery of scores of graves along the
jungle-clad border dividing Thailand and Malaysia.
 Lieutenant General Manus Kongpan said he was ready and willing to go
to trial.
"I ask for justice. I'm ready to fully cooperate with officials in
every way," he told reporters by telephone on Tuesday while en route
to a police post at Pedang Besar, a town on the Thai-Malaysia border
where trafficking has flourished.
"BENGALIS"
Myanmar's government initially labeled the migrants on the
overloaded boat "Bengalis", a term it applies to both Bangladeshis
and Rohingyas, a mostly stateless Muslim minority of about 1.1
million living in Myanmar's Rakhine state.
It refuses to use the word Rohingya and insists most of them are
illegal Bangladeshi migrants. They live in apartheid-like conditions
and are resented by Rakhine's Buddhist majority.
The exodus of Rohingyas, who say they are fleeing persecution, is a
sensitive issue for Myanmar, which is under international pressure
to grant citizenship to the Rohingyas but risks outrage at home if
is seen as recognizing them among its dozens of ethnicities.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday said Myanmar needed to end
discrimination against Rohingyas in order to make its fledgling
democracy a success.
A navy officer who declined to be named told Reuters on Sunday that
some migrants aboard the crowded boat could speak a dialect that is
used in Rakhine state but not widely spoken in Bangladesh.
In Dhaka, the foreign ministry made its position clear.
"Those who are identified as Bangladeshi nationals, we will bring
them back to our country," a senior official at the foreign ministry
said, declining to be named. "But we will verify them first."
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said it was
concerned the boat might be taken to Bangladeshi waters.
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"Which takes us back to the topic which occupies us so much the past
couple of weeks, these smuggled migrants not being given due places
to land and continuing to suffer while they are aboard these
vessels," IOM spokesman Leonard Doyle told a news briefing in
Geneva.
Chris Lewa, whose Arakan Project tracks the movement of Rohingya
boats, said the migrants should be put ashore immediately and the UN
should have access to them to provide assistance and identify who
they are.
"They should be allowed to go home without punishment whether they
are Rohingya or from Bangladesh," said Lewa, adding that some
Rohingya would be reluctant to identify themselves as such because,
unable to provide identification, they could be jailed in Myanmar
for illegal immigration.
REGIONAL CRISIS
The seaborne exodus mushroomed last month into a regional crisis for
which Myanmar insists it is not to blame. Seventeen countries were
represented at a meeting in Bangkok last week after around 4,000
Rohingya and Bangladeshi "boat people" landed on the shores of
Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia through May.
Scott Busby, the U.S. Deputy Assistant secretary for democracy,
human rights and labor, on Tuesday welcomed an agreement between
affected countries to address "root causes" of the exodus, but said
Myanmar should make a start by granting Rohingyas citizenship.
"Many people have been there for a very long period of time, they
need access to citizenship," he told reporters in Cambodia.
Hollywood actor Matt Dillon was in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine
State, on Monday. He visited a camp for displaced Rohingya and a
fishing village from which many migrants had left on smugglers'
boats.
"I saw a grim situation, a lot of barbed wire ... The residential
area was ghettoized," Dillon told reporters in Bangkok. "I felt that
this is a very vulnerable group. These people are the most desperate
of the desperate."
(Additional reporting by Reporting by Kaweewit Kaewjinda and Simon
Webb in BANGKOK, Ruma Paul in DHAKA, Prak Chan Thul in PHNOM PENH
and Stephanie Nebehay in GENEVA; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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