Pope lands in Myanmar, set to meet army chief

Yangon : Pope Francis held talks on Monday with Myanmar’s military chief at the start of a delicate visit to a majority-Buddhist country that the United States has accused of “ethnic cleansing” against its Muslim Rohingya people.

The leader of the Roman Catholic church will also visit Bangladesh, where more than 620,000 Rohingya have fled to escape what Amnesty International has called “crimes against humanity”.

Myanmar’s army has denied accusations of murder, rape, torture and forced displacement that have been made against it.

The pope’s first meeting in Yangon was with military commander Senior General Min Aung Hlaing in St. Mary’s Cathedral in the heart of the Southeast Asian nation’s largest city.