JakartaPost/Reuters-Oct 28
Myanmar’s military government warned on Thursday that any pressure from its Southeast Asian neighbors to put a time frame on a peace plan would create “negative implications”. The ruling junta, which seized power from an elected government last year, was reacting to a meeting earlier on Thursday of foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries in Jakarta to discuss easing the intensifying crisis. ASEAN remains committed to a peace plan agreed with Myanmar’s military rulers, its chair Cambodia said on Thursday, even as some countries raised concerns over the failure to implement the plan agreed with the junta 18 months ago. No Myanmar representatives were present at the special meeting of the group’s foreign ministers to discuss the stalled peace plan. Myanmar’s generals have been barred from high-level ASEAN meetings since last year, after the army ousted Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in a February 2021 coup, detaining her and thousands of activists and launching a deadly crackdown that has given rise to armed resistance movements. The junta has done little to honor its commitments to the so-called five-point peace “consensus” which includes an immediately halting violence, starting dialogue, allowing an ASEAN chair envoy to facilitate mediation and allowing ASEAN to provide humanitarian assistance. The head of the junta has blamed the lack of progress on instability in the country and the COVID-19 pandemic. Late on Thursday, Myanmar’s military-appointed foreign ministry released a statement blaming armed resistance movements for violence and saying pressure to set a time frame will create more negative implications than positive ones. Political analysts said the ASEAN meeting, which comes ahead of the bloc’s leaders’ summit next month, was disappointing and did little to move the needle on getting Myanmar’s generals to cooperate. Read more at:
