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Myanmar in focus at upcoming ASEAN meeting: Retno
The Myanmar coup and prolonged crisis will be the main topic of discussion at the ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting that opens on Oct. 27 in Jakarta, as the region's leaders look ahead to next month's summits and possible next steps.
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Foreign Minister Retno L.P. Marsudi (center) listens alongside Brunei Second Minister of Foreign Affairs Erywan Yusof (right) as Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn speaks during a meeting with the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) on Aug. 2, 2022, as part of the 55th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Phnom Penh. (AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy)
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ndonesia is set to host a preparatory meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers on Thursday in Jakarta, which aims to help the region’s leaders decide how to handle junta-controlled Myanmar ahead of the grouping’s 40th and 41st summits in Cambodia next month, as calls grow to replace its Five-Point Consensus that critics have bemoaned as ineffective.
Myanmar has been in crisis since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup by the military junta that overthrew the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. According to one monitoring group, more than 2,300 people have been killed in the junta’s brutal crackdown on dissent that followed. In the latest incident, the junta launched an air raid on a civilian gathering on Sunday that killed at least 80 people.
Due to lack of progress on Southeast Asia’s response to the Myanmar crisis, ASEAN foreign ministers agreed in August to “closely monitor Myanmar” until the November summits, when ASEAN leaders would take further action on the junta’s noncompliance.
At a follow-up meeting last month in New York, Indonesia offered to host a meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in Jakarta with a view to preparing the bloc’s next course of action.
Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi had since maintained “intensive communication” with her regional counterparts, she said during an interview with The Jakarta Post on Oct. 21 at the ministry, which included shuttling to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore last week.
She had also kept an open line of communication with current ASEAN chair Cambodia to ensure “an advanced, strong and relevant ASEAN” ahead of the summit, Retno added.
“This year’s summit will be quite different, meaning that the challenges faced by ASEAN have been burdensome. On the external front we have [complicated] geopolitics. The internal issues are not any easier, including the Myanmar problem [which is] a pronounced trouble at the moment,” she said.
