Global Courant
YANGON – Myanmar confirmed on Saturday that the country’s foreign minister will attend controversial “informal talks” in Bangkok over the coup-hit country’s political crisis as Singapore warned that conditions were not yet favorable for Asean to to re-engage the high-level military junta. meetings.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since a military coup in February 2021 that removed democratically elected civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi from office.
Since the coup, more than 3,600 civilians have been killed in the military’s crackdown, according to a local monitoring group, while more than a million people have been displaced by violence, according to the United Nations.
Late on Saturday, the junta’s intelligence team confirmed that Myanmar’s Foreign Minister Than Shwe “had been invited to a meeting in Thailand and would go”.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is also a member, has so far conducted fruitless diplomatic efforts to curb the bloodshed amid violent clashes between the military and anti-coup fighters.
The 10-nation bloc banned Myanmar’s junta from top-level summits for failing to implement a five-point peace plan agreed two years ago.
Last week, Thailand’s transitional government proposed organizing a two-day informal meeting of some ASEAN foreign ministers starting on Sunday.
“Given various pressing factors, the time for dialogues is sooner rather than later,” Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai wrote in an invitation letter viewed by AFP.
Speaking in Washington on Friday, Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan expressed concern over the talks.
“We believe it would be premature to re-engage with the junta at a summit or even a foreign minister level,” said Dr. Balakrishnan.
A Southeast Asian official familiar with the matter told AFP on condition of anonymity that Malaysia would not attend the proposed meeting.
But the Cambodian government said its foreign minister will be there.
The last summit of ASEAN leaders, held in May, ended without significant progress on the peace plan, with Indonesian President Joko Widodo warning that the bloc is in danger of becoming irrelevant. AFP
