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Indonesia tells ASEAN's special Myanmar envoy to start inclusive dialogue
Indonesia and its fellow ASEAN members are looking to make a breakthrough in the Myanmar coup crisis, after a year of being stonewalled by the country's military junta.
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Malaysia's Saifuddin Abdullah, Philippines' Teodoro Locsin, Singapore's Vivian Balakrishnan, Cambodia's Prak Sokhonn, Indonesia's Retno LP Marsudi, Laos' Saleumxay Kommasith and ASEAN Secretary-General Lim Jock Hoi pose for a group photo during the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Retreat in Phnom Penh on Feb. 17, 2022. (AFP/TANG CHHIN Sothy )
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ndonesia and other ASEAN member states on Thursday called on the bloc’s mediator for the Myanmar coup crisis to initiate contact with various stakeholders from the nation as a first step forward, following a year of slow progress on the complex situation that continues to unravel there.
Since the military putsch on Feb. 1, 2021, ASEAN has been sluggish in its response to the ensuing crisis, even after making demands for coup leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian relief and initiate an inclusive dialogue to bring the country back from the brink of what some analysts predict could become a civil war.
The top diplomats of nine ASEAN countries convened in Phnom Penh in a hybrid online-offline format for closed-door talks on various issues of regional concern, with the dire situation in Myanmar near the top of the list.
The retreat was previously postponed last month following a disagreement within ASEAN over the invitation extended to junta-appointed representative Wunna Maung Lwin, in defiance of a previous ASEAN agreement to allow only a nonpolitical member from Myanmar to join the talks.
With the absence of a representative to Myanmar this time around, the nine others put their heads together to plan the next steps for a more effective regional response.
The foreign ministers of Brunei and Thailand attended the meeting virtually, with Vietnam’s Bui Thanh Son joining them at the last minute after testing positive for COVID-19 upon arriving in the Cambodian capital.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi, who went to the meeting in person, said in a press briefing afterward that the ASEAN-9 expected some progress on the implementation of the leader-mandated Five-Point Consensus (5PC) formulated in Jakarta in April last year.
