Irrawaddy/AFP-Oct 23
Southeast Asian foreign ministers will hold emergency talks in Jakarta next week to discuss strife-torn Myanmar ahead of November’s ASEAN leaders’ summit, diplomatic sources said Friday. Myanmar has been in chaos since a coup in February last year, with more than 2,300 killed in the military’s brutal crackdown on dissent, according to a local monitoring group. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has spearheaded so far fruitless efforts to resolve the crisis, and the bloc is frustrated by escalating human rights atrocities — including the execution of political prisoners and a recent airstrike on a school. There has been little progress on a five-point plan from April last year, which called for an end to violence, increased humanitarian aid, as well as dialogue between the military and the anti-coup movement. An Indonesian foreign ministry official said a meeting was scheduled for Thursday at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta. The talks are expected to review progress on the plan. “The Myanmar junta doesn’t show any desire or concrete steps for implementation (of the plan),” a Foreign Ministry spokesman told AFP. The official noted that any potential suspension of Myanmar’s ASEAN membership would not be an easy process. Chum Sounry, Cambodia’s foreign ministry spokesman, told AFP a team had been sent to Myanmar to discuss concrete action and the envoy’s third visit to the country — originally slated for September.“We are now waiting for a response from the Myanmar side,” he said. Read more at: https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/asia/asean-ministers-to-hold-emergency-talks-on-myanmar.html
