ASEAN leaders have agreed to form an ad hoc task force to be in charge of monitoring the repatriation of Rohingya refugees, after previous efforts made this year ended in failure when no refugees were willing to return to Rakhine state.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and other ASEAN leaders gathered in Bangkok in a plenary session on Saturday evening as part of a series of meetings for the ASEAN Summit, to be held until Monday.

ASEAN has been widely criticized for its slow — if not lack of response — over the refugee crisis, which has dragged on since August 2017 following a military campaign that allegedly involved murder, rape, torture and razing villages in Myanmar's Rakhine.

About 700,000 Rohingya Muslims from the western part of Rakhine have fled across the border to Bangladesh. The United Nations has accused Myanmar's military of committing "genocide" against the Muslim minority.

The Emergency Response and Assessment Team (ERAT) from the bloc’s disaster mitigation agency, the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Center), visited Rakhine in March and wrote recommendations from a preliminary needs assessment of the refugee population in Bangladesh.

However, not a single Rohingya refugee has voluntarily returned out of fear for their safety.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said while the recommendations were mostly implemented by the AHA Center, specifically its ERAT, another team should also be established to monitor their implementation.

“That is why [ASEAN] leaders agreed to establish an ad hoc task force in the ASEAN Secretariat. The President also said that Indonesia was ready to make a contribution so that the ad hoc task force can operate immediately because it is very important to follow up on the recommendations with priority activities or projects,” Retno said on Saturday evening in Bangkok.

The task force is to work full time to monitor the implementation of the preliminary needs assessment for repatriation.

"I am sure we all hope that the situation in Rakhine state can return to normal soon," Jokowi told ASEAN leaders at the plenary meeting, according to a press release received by The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Jokowi emphasized that a dialogue with both the refugees currently living in a camp in Cox’s Bazar and internally displaced persons in Rakhine was very important, Retno said.

“Dialogue and communication will create trust, which is very important for a voluntary, safe and dignified repatriation."

In late August, a fresh push to repatriate about 3,450 Rohingya refugees to Myanmar turned out to be a failure as no one turned up to board the five buses and 10 trucks provided by Bangladeshi authorities.

The refugees demanded a dialogue with the Myanmar government about a real guarantee of citizenship and security.

In addition to discussing the ongoing refugee crisis, ASEAN leaders also discussed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), as India remains the main stumbling block to its conclusion.

ASEAN members and its six partner countries, including regional rivals China and India, have gone through many rounds of negotiations since ASEAN leaders set a target to conclude the RCEP by the end of this year.

Disagreements between China and India over access to India’s giant consumer market have undercut talks in recent months.

Leaders of RCEP countries are scheduled to meet in an RCEP Summit on Monday and the negotiations are expected to last until the event's final minutes.

Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto revealed that there were still critical issues hampering the negotiations.

"The critical issues are indeed [from] India. Services and investments are the pending issues. However, we have a solution; we just need to figure out how to formulate it so that it can be implemented," he said.

Trade Minister Agus Suparmanto expressed optimism that the deal would be signed in Vietnam next year.

Retno added on the issue: "We still hope that at the last moment, there will be a meeting point, so that on [Monday], we can produce something."

According to a Reuters report, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not even mention the RCEP deal in his opening remarks for a meeting with Southeast Asian leaders and instead spoke only of reviewing the existing trade agreement between ASEAN and India.

"This will help not only further strengthen our economic relations, but our trade will also be more balanced," Modi said, as reported by Reuters.

The 16 countries in the RCEP would account for a third of global gross domestic product (GDP) and nearly half the world's population.

However, India is worried about a potential flood of Chinese imports.

A person with knowledge of New Delhi's negotiations said new demands were made last week "that are difficult to meet”, according to Reuters.

Southeast Asian countries had hoped that at least a provisional agreement could be announced on Monday.

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