ASEAN meetings begin amid Myanmar crisis, 'complex' challenges

Nikkei Asia ^

[FarCenter]

JAKARTA -- Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and partner countries are gathering in Jakarta for a series of meetings, with the situation in Myanmar high on the agenda as the prolonged crisis divides ASEAN and continues to cause concern globally.

"We have no choice but to show that ASEAN can navigate the regional and global dynamics and continue to instill the paradigm of collaboration," Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said at the beginning of the ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting on Tuesday, saying the task now comes "amidst more complex challenges."

Indonesia, this year's chair, expects the Myanmar issue will be a key topic at the series of meetings throughout the week.

"ASEAN remains deeply concerned about the increasing use of violence in Myanmar resulting in civilian casualties and destruction of public facilities. This must be stopped immediately," Marsudi told reporters on Friday ahead of the ministerial talks. "The issue of Myanmar will certainly be discussed again at the ASEAN foreign ministers' retreat meeting."

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A draft joint communique of the foreign ministers' meeting, which was seen by Nikkei Asia and due to be officially released on Wednesday, hints at some progress in the negotiations with China over a code of conduct in the South China Sea to manage tensions. "We looked forward to the adoption of the Guidelines for Accelerating the Early Conclusion of an Effective and Substantive Code of Conduct in the South China Sea at the [ASEAN-China meeting] on 13 July," reads the draft communique, without providing details.

Besides the bloc's own meeting of foreign ministers, top diplomats from countries in the Asia-Pacific region, North America and Europe, including U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken, will meet on Friday for the annual ASEAN Regional Forum, a rare international platform in which North Korea regularly participates. Among the forum's 27 members are China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, the U.S. and the European Union.

The Chinese government announced on Tuesday that its top diplomat, Wang Yi, would be attending the meetings in Jakarta.

Most members will have their foreign ministers take part, but North Korea is believed to have assigned its ambassador to Indonesia instead of another high-level official, according to people familiar with the matter. The Russian Embassy in Indonesia meanwhile announced last week that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would be in Jakarta from Thursday to Friday.

The meetings are expected to look at wider range of topics amid the prolonged Ukraine war and ongoing disputes in the South China Sea.

[Bookshelf]

Myanmar crisis? What crisis? For seventy years the military has killed off its enemies, attacked the Kachin and Karen, Shan and Wau, and now throws the Muslim Arakanese out of the country. Everything is copacetic.

[BobL]

Seems to me the military there has things under control and what REALLY bothers the West is that they cannot make a slave state out of Burma, as they’ve done with Europe, Japan, and other countries.

[montag813]

Myanmar is doing just fine, deporting most of the illegal invader Bangladeshi Muslims who use the fake ethnicity “Rohingya,” just as the mostly Jordanian Arabs use the fake ethnicity “Palestinians.” So of course the conquered-by-Islam states like Indonesia and Malaysia are mad about Myanmar’s brutal effectiveness, but it is no “crisis” at all. I wish Israel had done the same with occupying Jordanians in the “West Bank” decades ago. The U.N. has setup “refugee camps” for the deported “Rohingya” in Bangladesh just as they did in the West Bank after Israel liberated it.