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Indonesia looks to steer ASEAN out of Myanmar coup fallout
Indonesia will propose new initiatives at the upcoming retreat to improve ASEAN's ability to respond to crises in the future, reflecting on its continued failure to rein in Myanmar's junta.
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Myanmar junta chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing (bottom right) attends a meeting of ASEAN leaders at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta on April 24, 2021, for talks on how to guide the country out of the crisis he created. (AFP/Indonesian Presidential Palace )
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ndonesia will at this week’s ASEAN retreat propose the creation of an eminent persons group to formulate a regional vision beyond 2025, which improves on the bloc’s ability to deal with “current challenges” amid doubts over its handling of crises including the Myanmar coup fallout.
Most ASEAN foreign ministers will convene in Cambodia’s capital city Phnom Penh starting from Wednesday for closed-door talks on Thursday, amid mounting pressure from the international community to deal with the Myanmar crisis, and at a time of flux in the wider Indo-Pacific region.
The retreat is Cambodia’s first high-level meeting as this year’s ASEAN chair, initially scheduled last month but postponed due to opposition over an invitation extended to Myanmar’s military regime, which continues to cling onto power after usurping the previous government of Aung San Suu Kyi over a year ago.
It will be convened in an online-offline hybrid format, with the top diplomats of Brunei Darussalam and Thailand electing to join the talks via video link, while the seven other foreign ministers are to meet in person.
Myanmar's junta regime pulled the country out of the meeting on Monday, reversing a previous decision to delegate the role of national representation to Chan Aye, a permanent secretary of foreign affairs at the Myanmar foreign ministry. The ASEAN chair and other member states have demanded that Myanmar be represented by a bureaucrat and not by a junta appointee.
The retreat promises a candid stock take of ASEAN’s most pertinent issues both internally and externally, which will inform subsequent discussions as well as the outcome document for the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in August.
The Foreign Ministry’s director general for ASEAN affairs, Sidharto Suryodipuro, said that Indonesia would table a proposal to form an ASEAN task force comprising respected individuals from the region, which will hash out a new vision document to replace the current iteration that has laid out a regional road map that goes up until 2025.
