TEHRAN (Dispatches) - An aid flotilla organized to deliver food and emergency supplies from Muslim majority Malaysia to Rohingya Muslims is yet to receive permission to enter Myanmar, raising fears of confrontation and deterioration of already-tense ties between the countries.
The flotilla will sail from Malaysia for Myanmar's crisis-hit Rakhine State on January 10, the Malaysian organizer said on Friday. It would be carrying 1,000 tons of rice, medical aid and other essentials for the Rohingya population.
Malaysia has been highly critical of the violent crackdown by Myanmar's government in Rakhine, which has killed scores of people and displaced 30,0000 Rohingya, amid allegations of abuses by security forces.
The organizers of the flotilla had applied for permission through Myanmar’s embassy in Kula Lumpur to cross into the Buddhist-dominant country, but have yet to receive a reply, according to the Malaysian Consultative Council of Islamic Organizations secretary general Zulhanis Zainol.
"Even if we do not receive a response, we will continue to sail as we believe this is an important humanitarian mission," he said.
Myanmar's presidential office, however, said it had obtained no such request, adding that it would "not receive” the flotilla without permission.
An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Rohingyas, displaced by violence, live in Malaysia.

Nobel Laureates Warn Aung San Suu Kyi
More than a dozen fellow Nobel laureates have criticized Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, for a bloody military crackdown on minority Muslim Rohingya people, warning of a tragedy "amounting to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”.
The open letter to the UN security council from a group of 23 activists warned that the army offensive had killed of hundreds of people, including children, and left women raped, houses burned and many civilians arbitrarily arrested.
It was delivered as Bangladesh announced around 50,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled the violence across its border.
"Access for humanitarian aid organizations has been almost completely denied, creating an appalling humanitarian crisis in an area already extremely poor,” reads the letter.
"Some international experts have warned of the potential for genocide. It has all the hallmarks of recent past tragedies – Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, Kosovo,” the letter reads.
"If we fail to take action, people may starve to death if they are not killed with bullets.”
 "The Rohingya are a minority of about a million Muslim people who, despite living in the country for generations, are treated as illegal immigrants and denied citizenship. They have been persecuted for years by the government and nationalist Buddhists.
The recent bloodshed is the most deadly since hundreds were killed in clashes in 2012 and more than 100,000 were forced into squalid camps.
An Amnesty International report this month, based on extensive interviews with Rohingya as well as analysis of satellite imagery, claimed that actions by Myanmar’s military may constitute crimes against humanity.