Myanmar talks split ASEAN diplomats in Jakarta

Senior Southeast Asian diplomats were not amused by Thailand’s push to re-engage with Myanmar, undermining Jakarta’s effort to bring opposing parties to peace talks.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, right, welcomes Thailand Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers meeting in Jakarta on Friday. Picture: AFP

Senior Southeast Asian diplomats were not amused by Thailand’s push to re-engage with Myanmar, undermining Jakarta’s seven-month effort to bring opposing parties to peace talks and further threatening the bloc’s unity.

Myanmar was banned from attending ASEAN events at political level after its military seized power from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021.

But the regional association of ASEAN has struggled to maintain a united front against the Myanmar junta, which maintained close ties with the former Thai government of Prayuth Chan-o-cha.

The ministers were caught off guard earlier this week when Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai claimed he met Ms Suu Kyi, making him the first foreign envoy allowed to meet her since she was detained following the coup.

In a joint communique published on Thursday night from the ASEAN summit in Jakarta, ASEAN ministers said they “strongly condemned the continued acts of violence, including airstrikes, artillery shelling, and destruction of public facilities,” the strongest wording it has made since the coup.

The communique, a negotiated statement that represents the position of all ASEAN members, made it clear that the group would continue to address the political crisis in Myanmar using the so-called five-point consensus, a set of demands proposed by Indonesia a few months after the coup.

As this year’s ASEAN chair and the third country who has taken a crack at finding a solution to the prolonged conflict after Brunei and Cambodia, ­Indonesia said it had made 110 “engagements” with the key stakeholders in Myanmar, both the military and pro-democracy groups, as well as ethnic armed groups. Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said she believed it was finally time to open an inclusive dialogue between warring parties in Myanmar.

“We called for continued support of the External Partners, ­including the UN and neighbouring countries of Myanmar, to work with ASEAN for concrete implementation of the five point consensus,” the ministers said.

They said they were briefed by Thailand “on its ­recent activities on Myanmar, which a number of ASEAN Member States viewed as a positive development” while reiterated that any effort should be supported, in line with the five-point consensus and in co-ordination with the association’s chair.

This showed that a number of ASEAN member states did not see Thailand’s activities as a positive development, said Aaron Connelly, senior fellow for Southeast Asian politics and foreign policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“It’s also notable that there is no further acknowledgment of Don’s reported meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi,” he said. “No language welcoming the meeting, of course, but not even a sentence welcoming news of her condition. That speaks to the lack of trust in Don, and doubt among fellow ministers that he has given an accurate account of his conversation with her.”