ASEAN heads of state on Wednesday condemned the Sunday attack against a convoy of Indonesian and Singaporean diplomats traveling to help with humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, urging for the implementation of peace initiative the Five-Point Consensus (5PC).
The statement came as pressure continued to mount for the 10-nation bloc to prove it has stripes to deal with the unabating emergency in Naypyidaw by possibly moving beyond ASEAN’s 5PC, with many now expressing their pessimism in the association.
It also came after Monday’s statements from President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and the Singaporean foreign ministry condemning the attack, with the former strongly asserting the need to stop the use of violence and for the opening of a “path for dialogue toward a common solution”.
“We supported the statement of the Indonesian President as the chair of ASEAN on 8 May in response to the attack on a convoy of the AHA Center [ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance] and the ASEAN Monitoring Team in Myanmar,” the leaders’ statement said.
“We condemned the attack and underlined that the perpetrators must be held accountable.”
Read also: ASEAN at crossroads as leaders descend on Labuan Bajo
Since assuming the chairmanship position in January, Indonesia had donned a quiet diplomacy strategy of engaging with many Myanmar stakeholders and occasionally giving ambiguous updates while maintaining that some progress had been made, the latest from last week being on the front of humanitarian assistance.
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