Southeast Asia’s foreign ministers met Thursday in Jakarta to discuss Myanmar’s political crisis ahead of November’s ASEAN summit without a representative from the country’s military junta.
Myanmar has been in chaos since a coup in February last year when more than 2,300 people were killed in the military’s crackdown on dissidents, according to a local monitoring group.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has said it is “deeply concerned” by escalating human rights abuses there, but its efforts to resolve the crisis are yet to bear fruit.
A five-point ASEAN plan from April last year would be a focus of Thursday’s emergency talks at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Marsudi would hold a press conference on the talks in the afternoon.
The 10-country bloc was to discuss the progress of the plan, which called for an end to the violence; increased help; and dialogue between the military and the anti-coup movement.
“The Myanmar junta has not shown any desire or concrete steps to implement (the plan),” an Indonesian foreign ministry official told AFP last week.
Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing was not invited to next month’s ASEAN leadership summit in Cambodia – for the second time in a row – and Myanmar’s top diplomat Wunna Maung Lwin was barred from ministerial talks in February and August.
A Thai Foreign Ministry official confirmed that Myanmar did not send a representative to Thursday’s meeting.
Political prisoners have been executed in Myanmar in recent months, and an airstrike on a concert held by rebels in Kachin state on Sunday reportedly killed around 50 people.
The junta said reports of the airstrike killing civilians were “rumours”.
The United States urged vigorous action at Thursday’s meeting.
Daniel Kritenbrink, the top US diplomat for East Asia, said the junta was leading “the complete destruction of every advance made over the past decade” as the nation transitioned to democracy.
The envoy said Washington has “great respect” for ASEAN, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed “frustration” at the lack of progress in Myanmar during talks in August.
