Members of ASEAN have heaped condemnation on Myanmar's junta, which they say has failed to make concrete progress on a peace plan agreed with the 10-nation bloc last year, including engaging with opponents and a cessation of hostilities.

Myanmar's military seized power from an elected government in a coup last year, and has since then crushed dissent with lethal force. Most recently, the junta has been criticized for executing political activists and imprisoning Aung San Suu Kyi, the symbol of Myanmar's opposition and democracy movement. 

ASEAN has barred Myanmar's generals from attending regional meetings, and some members said last month it would be forced to rethink the way forward unless the junta demonstrates progress on the peace plan. 

The junta has declined offers to send non-political representatives instead to ASEAN meetings.

"If a seat representing a country is vacant, then it should not be labeled an ASEAN summit," junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said at a routine news conference on Wednesday, adding that Myanmar was working on implementing the peace plan.

"What they want is for us to meet and talk with the terrorists," he said, using the junta's label for pro-democracy movements that have taken up arms against the military.

He said ASEAN was violating its own policy of non-interference in a country's sovereign affairs while facing "external pressure", but did not elaborate.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cambodia, which is currently chairing ASEAN, did not address the accusation.

Ministry spokesperson Chum Sounry said ASEAN was "hopeful that the situation in Myanmar can be greatly improved, so that it can return as an indispensable member of our united ASEAN family again."

Several western countries including the United States and the United Kingdom have imposed sanctions on Myanmar's junta over the coup.

The United Nations needs to "review its approach" to solving Myanmar's bloody post-coup crisis, the junta's foreign minister told the world body's special envoy during her first visit to the country on Wednesday.

Myanmar has been embroiled in turmoil since the military seized power in February last year, prompting fierce resistance and violence across swaths of the country.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis led by the UN and ASEAN regional bloc have made little headway, with the generals refusing to engage with opponents.

In his meeting with UN envoy Noeleen Heyzer on Wednesday the junta's foreign affairs minister called on the world body to "constructively and pragmatically review its approach in its cooperation with Myanmar", the foreign ministry said as quoted by Reuters.

Heyzer's office said she had "directly urged" junta chief Min Aung Hlaing "to impose a moratorium on all future executions".

It also said she had conveyed a request from Australia's government for the junta to free detained Australian economist Sean Turnell, who is on trial accused of breaching the country's official secrets act. 

Singaporean sociologist Heyzer was appointed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last year, replacing Swiss diplomat Christine Schraner Burgener.

Schraner Burgener had called for the UN to take "very strong measures" against the military and was the target of regular broadsides in Myanmar's state-backed media.

Military leaders blocked her from visiting the country, where she had hoped to meet with Suu Kyi.

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