July 25, 2024
VIENTIANE – A senior official working under Myanmar’s junta expressed hope that Myanmar would regain its status in Asean alongside other members of the bloc and asked for “understanding and support” on the sidelines of the Asean foreign ministers’ meetings in Laos on July 24.
“We are very much hopeful, very hopeful,” said Dr Khin Thidar Aye, director-general of the Asean affairs department in Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Laos. “If we consider the extent of cooperation from our side, normalisation should be coming very soon.”
The Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, Asean Regional Forum and other related meetings between the top diplomats of the bloc and its partners began in Vientiane on July 24 and run till July 27.
Myanmar was represented by Mr Aung Kyaw Moe, the permanent secretary of the junta-controlled Foreign Ministry. The shadow civilian National Unity Government, which emerged after the 2021 military coup, has its own foreign minister, Ms Zin Mar Aung.
Given the spiralling turmoil in Myanmar, Asean has shut Myanmar political appointees out of its high-level meetings by inviting “non-political representatives” from the country. This means neither junta chief Min Aung Hlaing nor the junta’s Foreign Minister, Mr Than Swe, have attended the Asean meetings.
The junta, after sitting out previous Asean meetings, began sending a Foreign Ministry official as its representative for the first time in January 2024.
As such, Mr Aung Kyaw Moe on July 24 took part in the meeting of the South-east Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Commission and an Asean foreign ministers’ meeting with representatives of the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights. He also led the Myanmar delegation in a bilateral meeting with the secretary-general of Asean, Dr Kao Kim Hourn.
Speaking to reporters at the National Convention Centre in Vientiane, Dr Khin Thidar Aye said the main objective of her government was to “organise the election at an earliest date and to reinstate federal democracy in Myanmar”.
“We very much need the support of the international community and the understanding and support, not the criticism and pressure,” she said.
While pledging to hold a fresh election after overthrowing the civilian government led by state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, the junta has kept Myanmar under a state of emergency since the coup.
Violence has intensified as the junta struggles to maintain control of Myanmar’s border regions against powerful ethnic armed groups fighting alongside the newly emerged anti-junta People’s Defence Forces.
More than three million people have been forced from their homes, and poverty has gripped about half of the population.
China has exerted pressure on ethnic armed groups operating near its border to scale down hostilities, but progress on Asean’s three-year-old road map to help Myanmar achieve a resolution has been meagre.
On July 24, the foreign ministers of Laos, Indonesia and Malaysia – the current, past and future rotating chair of Asean – held an informal meeting about this issue.
It is unclear if any changes will be proposed at the 57th Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on July 25.
Apart from the Myanmar crisis, the meeting is expected to discuss the increasingly violent confrontations between rival claimants in the South China Sea that have stoked fears of larger conflict in the vital waterway.