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Cambodian premier's visit to Myanmar sets tone of upcoming ASEAN retreat
The regional grouping may be headed for a heated "family intervention" at next week's foreign minister's retreat over its current chair's breakaway visit and joint statement with Myanmar's Min Aung Hlaing last Friday.
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Regional faux pas: Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen (left) and Min Aung Hlaing, who heads the Myanmar military and chairs the junta-led regime in the country, meet during Hun Sen's visit to capital Naypyidaw on Jan. 7, 2022. (AFP/Stringer)
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s the Myanmar crisis continues to loom large, ASEAN foreign ministers are slated to meet for their annual retreat next week in Siem Reap, Cambodia, in a potential setup for a heated discussion following Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s widely criticized visit to Myanmar over the weekend.
Cambodia, as the current ASEAN chair, has the complicated task of handling the protracted humanitarian, political and economic crises in an ASEAN member state, nearly a year after the Myanmar military ousted its democratically elected government on Feb. 1, 2021.
Myanmar’s military regime, which the international community does not recognized as the country’s legitimate government, was excluded from last year’s ASEAN Summit due to the grouping’s lack of progress in implementing the Five-Point Consensus.
The consensus is a set of conditions the leaders of the nine other ASEAN states drew up for Min Aung Hlaing, the general who chairs junta-led regime in Myamar, when they met at a special meeting in April 2021 at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta.
However, Phnom Penh risks undermining ASEAN’s efforts to address the Myanmar crisis after Hun Sen’s two-day visit to Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw on Jan. 7-8 sparked regional concern, especially considering the autocratic legacy of military strongman Hun Sen in his own country.
During his visit, the Cambodian leader claimed that progress had been made following the five-month ceasefire between the junta and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) in Myanmar. He added that his deputy prime minister and foreign affairs minister, Prak Sokhonn, whom he had nominated as the ASEAN special envoy to Myanmar this year, would participate in the ceasefire talks “with and among the EAOs”.
“This important step is embodied in the ASEAN Five-Point Consensus,” Hun Sen and Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said in a joint statement issued on Friday.
