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RI, ASEAN peers reject Thai proposal for informal Myanmar talks
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Displaced people from Myanmar carry belongings as they make their way to the Moei river on the Thai-Myanmar border to return from Thailand's Mae Sot district in Tak province on April 11. (AFP/Royal Thai Army)
M
ajor ASEAN member states have, with the support of the incoming Thai government, shot down a last-ditch attempt by the country’s outgoing pro-military government to host a regional meeting in support of Myanmar’s ostracized junta, sources say.
The proposed informal talks, outlined in a June 14 letter from Thailand’s caretaker Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai to his ASEAN counterparts, come as Myanmar's junta fails to make any progress in implementing ASEAN's Five-Point Consensus, to which the junta's generals and the bloc agreed two years ago.
Since the Myanmar military overthrew the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, the country has been in violent turmoil, and the junta’s unwillingness to implement the peace plan, which includes calls for an immediate end of hostilities, has resulted in it being barred from high-level ASEAN meetings.
As this year’s ASEAN chair, Indonesia has been speaking with all sides of the Myanmar conflict in the hope of making some progress on the peace plan.
Thailand’s proposal for two days of informal peace talks on Sunday and Monday have raised eyebrows among ASEAN member states and Thai politicians alike, particularly since Thailand’s current caretaker government is expected to leave office in August following last month’s election.
“[When it comes to matters] of this size, why not wait for the next government to make a decision,” Chaturon Chaisang, a senior politician and member of parliament-elect hailing from the Pheu Thai party, wrote on Twitter on Friday.
Thailand's progressive Move Forward Party, which won the most seats in the May election, has signaled that if it is able to form a government, it intends to follow a different policy on Myanmar from the current pro-military coalition that was soundly defeated at the polls.
