By Stanley Widianto
JAKARTA (Reuters) -The Southeast Asian grouping ASEAN will hold two meetings specifically on the civil war in army-ruled Myanmar ahead of its summit next week, the bloc’s secretary-general said on Wednesday, in a bid to advance its faltering peace effort.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations has repeatedly called for a halt in hostilities between rebels and the ruling junta that have displaced an estimated 3.5 million people since the military overthrew the elected civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021.
ASEAN’s peace proposal that same year, the “Five Point Consensus”, which calls for an end to violence and dialogue between warring groups, has made barely any progress, resulting in Myanmar’s ruling generals being barred from its summits.
“This is something new that will specifically focus on Myanmar, that they will take no other issue,” ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn told Reuters in an interview, referring to the two meetings in Malaysia on Myanmar.
Kao Kim Hourn did not specify the issues up for discussion or if there were new proposals to be made.
He said the first meeting would involve the current, previous and next ASEAN chair nations, namely Malaysia, Laos and Philippines, respectively. The second gathering would be of the bloc’s foreign ministers, he said.
Once seen as a promising frontier market following a decade of economic reform and tentative democracy, the 2021 coup plunged Myanmar into chaos, with the military struggling to govern and battling to contain a widening rebellion by ethnic minority rebels and a pro-democracy resistance movement.
The military has been accused of widespread atrocities, including air strikes on civilian areas, allegations it has rejected as western disinformation.
‘WE ALL ARE TOO IMPATIENT’
Asked about the lack of progress on Myanmar, Kao Kim Hourn defended ASEAN’s plan, describing it as “beautiful”, but urged all stakeholders to implement it.
“It will be presumptuous for any party to expect a quick fix to this issue. For us, we stay engaged,” he said. “But it may take time. You see, the thing is that we all are too impatient.”
“And as long as we bring down, you know, large-scale fighting to a smaller one, as long as we can bring people to the table, that’s progress.”
He declined to comment on the military launching multiple airstrikes and artillery assaults, as reported by Reuters, despite a ceasefire after a major earthquake in March. Kao Kim Hourn said it was unclear who had violated the ceasefire.
He also reiterated ASEAN countries and China were committed to finalising a protracted code of conduct for the hotly disputed South China Sea by next year, stressing the need to support that effort by maintaining peace.
“What is important for us in this region, number one, is to de-escalate the tensions and to prevent any possible risk of miscalculation, misperception that gives rise to unnecessary tension and maybe conflict,” Kao Kim Hourn said.
He also cited good progress towards admitting an 11th member to ASEAN – East Timor – which he said had fulfilled a number of required criteria.
“More likely, it could take place maybe later this year,” he said.
(Reporting by Stanley Widianto; Editing by Martin Petty)
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