Burmese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wunna Maung Lwin defended a plan to restore democracy after a meeting at which his Southeast Asian counterparts pressed the army to implement a regional agreement meant to end turmoil, state media reported yesterday.
The junta has paid little heed to demands from ASEAN to respect a “consensus” agreed in late April to end violence and hold political talks with its opponents.
Southeast Asian foreign ministers expressed disappointment at the meeting in China on Monday at the “very slow” progress made by Myanmar on its proposal for ending the turmoil since the army on Feb. 1 overthrew Burmese State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi.
Photo: AFP / Myanmar Radio and Television via AFPTV
State media cited Wunna Maung Lwin, the junta-appointed foreign minister, as telling the ASEAN-China foreign ministers’ meeting that the military had made progress on its own five-step roadmap for the country unveiled after its coup.
“The minister apprised the meeting that the only way to ensure the democratic system that is disciplined and genuine was through the five-point future program that was declared in February,” the Global New Light of Myanmar reported.
Wunna Maung Lwin said that most of these points had been met, including preventative COVID-19 measures and setting up a new election commission to look into alleged fraud during an election in November last year that was won convincingly by Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the newspaper reported.
The military defended its seizure of power after a decade of tentative steps toward democracy, saying that the old election commission had ignored its complaints of fraud.
Alarmed by the turmoil, several members of ASEAN have called for the release of political detainees, an end to the violence and for Myanmar’s rivals to hold talks on ending the crisis — calls reflected in the ASEAN “consensus.”
However, in the only reference to the ASEAN proposal, Wunna Maung Lwin was cited as saying that “discussions were made cordially” on it during a visit last week by two ASEAN envoys, who had also called for the release of political prisoners.
China’s state-run Global Times newspaper has quoted junta leader Min Aung Hlaing as telling the Chinese ambassador that Myanmar was willing to coordinate implementation of the consensus.
After Monday’s meeting, Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi said that Chinese help would be “highly appreciated, as this will contribute to achieving a peaceful solution.”
A shadow government formed by anti-coup opponents criticized China’s embassy in Myanmar for calling the junta chief the “leader” of Myanmar on a posting on its Web site.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in