(Reuters) – Indonesia’s foreign minister at a regional meeting on Thursday called out warring camps in Myanmar over their refusal to agree to dialogue, as fighting intensifies between the ruling military and an alliance of armed groups.
Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) held a closed-doors retreat in Laos during which Indonesia’s Retno Marsudi stressed Myanmar would remain on the sidelines of the bloc until its junta honoured a peace commitment made months after seizing power in a 2021 coup.
The Myanmar crisis has dogged ASEAN and dented its credibility as the junta pays lip-service to ASEAN’s calls to implement its “five-point consensus”, whereby all sides cease hostilities and start dialogue.
ASEAN has riled Myanmar’s generals by barring them from attending its summits, but has allowed the country to be represented by a senior diplomat instead.
“There is no progress on the implementation of five-point consensus. And if there is no progress still, Myanmar’s participation in ASEAN foreign ministers meetings and summits must be kept at non-political level,” Retno told the retreat, according to a statement from her ministry.
Myanmar’s representative at the meeting, according to Retno, addressed the issue “as if everything goes well, but the facts on the ground do not show it”.
An estimated 2.6 million people have been displaced by fighting, according to the United Nations, with the military widely condemned for its air strikes on civilian areas and accused by rights groups of systematic atrocities, which it has dismissed as western disinformation.
ASEAN has hit a wall in its peace effort, despite moves last year by former chair Indonesia to bring all sides to the table.
Hopes for dialogue are fading, with both sides becoming entrenched in their positions as ethnic minority rebels and resistance groups gain more ground and stifle the junta’s ability to govern.
On Thursday, a major rebel army said it had seized a regional military headquarters in Lashio, close to the border with China, in a major blow to the credibility of one of the region’s best-equipped militaries.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan in a statement expressed concern on the absence of dialogue, while his Thai counterpart Maris Sangiampongsa said he had received backing from ASEAN for Thailand to play a greater role and proposed open-ended talks with all stakeholders.
ASEAN will hold meetings on Friday with top diplomats from Russia, Japan, South Korea, the European Union, India and more, ahead of the weekend’s East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum, where key global issues are to be addressed.
(Reporting by Ananda Teresia, Stanley Widianto, Rozanna Latiff and Panu Wongcha-um; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
