Myanmar on Friday defended its decision to deploy troops near the Bangladesh border, where thousands of Rohingya refugees have sought shelter, ostensibly for an “anti-terrorism operation”, Al Jazeera reported on Friday.

Bangladesh, which criticised its neighbouring country’s decision, summoned Myanmar’s ambassador on Thursday, while the United Nations’ refugee agency expressed concern about the military build-up.

Myanmar, however, claimed that it was acting to protect itself and did not intend to antagonise Bangladesh. “We acted this way based on the information we got regarding terrorism,” especially the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army movement,” the Myanmar government’s spokesperson Zaw Htay told AFP.

Bangladeshi news channel BD News 24 reported that personnel of Myanmar’s border force had fired two shots in the air near the border at Naikhongchhari in Bangladesh’s Bandarban district at 8 pm (7.30 pm Indian Standard Time) on Thursday. “We also heard a hullabaloo in the Rohingya camp on the zero line at the time. No one was injured,” Lieutenant Colonel Manjurul Hasan of Border Guard Bangladesh said.

Filippo Grandi, the UN High commissioner for Refugees had told the Security Council in February that the conditions in Myanmar were “not yet conducive” for the Rohingya people to go back. “The causes of their flight have not been addressed, and we have yet to see substantive progress on addressing the exclusion and denial of rights that has deepened over the last decades, rooted in their lack of citizenship,” he had said.

Bangladesh and Myanmar had reached an agreement on January 16 for repatriating Rohingya refugees, who have been fleeing violence in their country since August 2017. The process was to begin on January 23 and last two years, but was postponed. Lakhs of Rohingyas are living in cramped refugee camps in Bangladesh at present, and according to the United Nations, there are at least 6.88 lakh Rohingya refugees worldwide.