Isolated by the West, Myanmar has resumed diplomatic ties with fellow pariah state North Korea in its latest effort to make friends more likely to sell it arms than lecture it on democracy.
The move follows stepped up contacts with China, Russia and India, countries the generals hope may help them dodge sanctions and cash in on the nation's largely untapped natural gas reserves.
A Myanmar foreign ministry official said on Monday that the junta had decided to restore diplomatic ties with North Korea, more than 20 years after Pyongyang staged a deadly bomb attack in Yangon.
Myanmar broke off diplomatic ties with North Korea in 1983 after it masterminded an attempt to assassinate South Korea's then-president Chun Doo-hwan while he was on an official visit to Yangon.
The decision to restore relations came as Maung Aye, the junta's second-most senior general, returned from an official visit to Russia where he reportedly reached a deal to allow Moscow to share in exploiting Myanmar's natural gas fields in exchange for weapons.
That was the first such high-level visit by a Myanmar official to Russia in 40 years, and came just weeks after visits by Indian President Abdul Kalam to Yangon and by Myanmar Prime Minister Soe Win to China.
Analysts said the secretive regime's latest diplomatic efforts marked a new drive to build alliances that would both circumvent Western arms embargoes and provide support in the face of growing pressure for democratic reforms.
Western countries and increasingly neighbors in Southeast Asia have pressed Myanmar to deliver on its long-delayed promises to reform and to free the country's detained opposition leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
"They need to expand their sphere of friends who are also up against the West," said Aung Naing Oo, a Myanmar analyst based in Thailand.
"North Korea is a rogue state, and this is the kind of nation from which [Myanmar] can get the weapons and weapons systems that they can never get from Russia and China, let alone the West," he said.
In addition to building relations with potential military suppliers, Myanmar has been working to counter US pressure at the UN for the Security Council to take action against the junta, analysts said.
"Myanmar must realize now that the US and others are trying to bring the issue to the UN with the ultimate goal of getting a resolution," said Asda Jayanama, a for-mer Thai ambassador who served both in Yangon and the UN.
Myanmar also finds itself forced to make friends with other pariah states like North Korea because of the growing pressure in Southeast Asia for democratic reforms, said Win Min, a Myanmar military analyst in Thailand.
"Better for them to have regional power on that side" of Asia, he said.
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