JakartaPost/AFP-July 13
Thailand’s foreign minister said on Wednesday he met with ousted Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi last week and she was in good health in her first known meeting with a foreign envoy since she was detained following a 2021 coup. Suu Kyi has been seen only once since she was held after the Feb. 1, 2021 putsch – in grainy state media photos from a bare courtroom in the military-built capital Naypyidaw. “There was a meeting, she was in good health and it was a good meeting,” Don Pramudwinai told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting (AMM) in Jakarta. The coup that overthrew Suu Kyi ended Myanmar’s brief democratic experiment and plunged the Southeast Asian nation into bloody turmoil. The Nobel laureate, 78, was later hit with a raft of charges and jailed by a junta court for a total of 33 years in trials that rights groups slammed as a sham. Don confirmed that he met with Suu Kyi on Sunday and that she had called for renewed talks to end the crisis. “She encouraged dialogue,” Don said. The meeting was private and lasted “over one hour”, a spokesperson from Thailand’s Foreign Affairs Ministry told AFP. The Philippines’ foreign minister said Don briefed ASEAN ministers on his meeting with Suu Kyi but reiterated any independent effort to restart the peace process should be in line with a five-point consensus (5PCs) ASEAN agreed on two years ago with Myanmar’s junta. “We feel any initiative should be consistent with the five-point consensus. He [Don] just reported on that,” Enrique Manalo told reporters. The junta has rebuffed repeated requests by foreign diplomats to meet Suu Kyi and her lawyers were barred from speaking to the media for much of her trial. She was transferred from house arrest in Naypyidaw to solitary confinement in prison in June last year. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2023/07/13/thai-foreign-minister-says-met-myanmars-suu-kyi.html.
