TheJakartaPost
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Thai government responds
Trying to link developments in Thailand and Myanmar is both misleading and disingenuous.
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Myanmar's commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing (left) meets with Thailand's Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha at the Government House in Bangkok on Sept. 3, 2019. (AFP/Handout)
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our commentary “Thai PM Prayut’s early exit will be good for ASEAN” published on March 23, 2022, is sensational, misleading and full of factual errors, reflecting a woeful lack of understanding of the subject.
It is therefore necessary to get the facts straight as follows.
First, anyone with proper knowledge and understanding of regional affairs will know full well that Southeast Asia is a diverse region and no two countries are the same. Thailand and Myanmar are no exceptions. Each country has its own unique history, culture and political development. Trying to link developments in Thailand and Myanmar is both misleading and disingenuous.
Second, Thailand fully supports the ASEAN leaders’ five-point consensus regarding Myanmar and wishes to see progress in its implementation. From the start, Thailand has been playing a constructive role to help advance its implementation.
In fact, the five-point consensus mirrors Thailand’s own “D4D” proposal submitted to the ASEAN leaders’ meeting in Jakarta in April 2021. Therefore, to say that the Thai prime minister “disliked the initiative” could not be further from the truth.
As a neighboring country that shares a long common border with Myanmar, Thailand, more than anyone else, wants to see peace, stability and normalcy in Myanmar.
The article is also replete with factual errors that intentionally skew the context of the times. For example, prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra was in fact removed from office in 2014 by a ruling of the Constitutional Court after months of political unrest and street protests, with a caretaker government in power at the time.
In sum, making sweeping claims based on a cursory examination of a country’s foreign policy and political leadership is the antithesis of respectable journalism.
Surely, the readership of The Jakarta Post deserves a much higher standard than the irresponsible overgeneralizations and sensational misrepresentations contained in this article.
Director general of the Department of Information,
and spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand
Bangkok
