Myanmar agreed yesterday to forgo the ASEAN chairmanship next year to avoid a damaging Western boycott of the group's meetings, as foreign ministers meeting in Laos prepared an accord on joining forces during tsunamis and other catastrophes.
The US and the EU had demanded that military-ruled Myanmar move toward democracy and release pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi or forfeit its turn at the rotating chairmanship of the 10-member regional bloc.
Myanmarese Foreign Minister Nyan Win told fellow ASEAN ministers during a retreat yesterday in the Laotian capital that the junta would relinquish the chairmanship, a joint ASEAN statement said. The post goes instead to next-in-line Philippines, Philippine Foreign Minister Alberto Romulo said.
`Full attention'
Nyan Win said his government wanted to give its "full attention" to its "ongoing national reconciliation and democratization process," the ASEAN statement said.
"We agreed that once Myanmar is ready to take its turn to be the ASEAN chair, it can do so," the ASEAN ministers said in the statement.
The issue came to a head in Laos this week during the group's annual ministerial meeting that runs through Friday, followed by the ASEAN Regional Forum -- a security dialogue with 14 other governments with interests in the region, such as the US, the EU, Russia and China.
ASEAN's more rapidly developing countries had feared damage to their trade ties with the West over the chairmanship issue. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice skipped this week's meeting, sending a deputy instead, in what diplomats suspected could be a precursor to a full boycott.
Asia expert Larry Wortzel of the Heritage Foundation in Washington said that handing the chairmanship to Myanmar would have been "foolish."
"Certainly Burma as chair would make it difficult for the US to focus its diplomacy on other matters of concern to the ASEAN states," Wortzel said.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer welcomed ASEAN's decision.
"I think under these circumstances it is better that Myanmar focus on political and constitutional reform," he told reporters during a trip to Thailand.
Snubbed
Despite Myanmar's stated intention to focus on national reconciliation, the Myanmarese foreign minister snubbed the UN envoy who had tried to push those efforts forward since 2002.
Nyan Win refused to meet with UN envoy Razali Ismail during this week's six-day conference in Laos, sending him a message that "he would be too busy," said Razali, who came to Vientiane specifically to meet the foreign minister.
The ASEAN ministers were set to sign a pact later yesterday to improve cooperation in emergency preparedness and to expedite customs procedures to ensure fast responses during tsunamis and other disasters.
Wary of relying too heavily on aid from other governments -- often with military involvement -- countries in the region want better local coordination of shipments of medicine, food and emergency supplies.
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