“We have never accepted this term,” Kyaw Zay Ya, a retired lieutenant-colonel who was elected as an MP for Ms Suu Kyi’s party last year and now serves in the foreign ministry, told the Wall Street Journal.

He added that “it is not possible to enforce” the directive, and would be up to foreign governments to decide.

The memo indicates that the position of the ministry on the term “Rohingya” is the same under the leadership of 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Ms Suu Kyi as it was under the previous military junta.