Cambodia’s Foreign Minister on Wednesday claimed minor initial progress in his mission as a special regional envoy seeking to facilitate peacemaking in strife-torn Myanmar.
Prak Sokhonn, representing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, spoke after his return from a visit to military-ruled Myanmar, which was plunged into an extended violent political crisis after the army seized power last year.
He said he was encouraged by the military government allowing him to meet with various parties to the conflict, but pessimistic about immediate chances for a ceasefire to end the violence.
Popular discontent with the military’s ouster of the country’s elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has turned into what some UN experts have characterised as a civil war, leading as well to a humanitarian crisis with hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
Prak Sokhonn held discussions Monday and Tuesday with Myanmar’s leader, Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing, and members of his cabinet about ASEAN’s five-point consensus on Myanmar, issued in April last year. He also met with diplomats from other ASEAN countries and the UN, as well as Ko Ko Gyi, a Myanmar politician best known as an activist in the failed 1988 uprising against military rule.
Myanmar, although a member of ASEAN, has done little to implement the plan, which calls for the immediate cessation of violence, a dialogue among all concerned parties, mediation by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid through ASEAN channels, and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet all concerned parties.
A major sticking point had been Myanmar’s refusal to let a previous ASEAN special envoy meet with Suu Kyi, who has been in detention since the army seized power in February 2021.
ASEAN in response ostracised Myanmar by blocking its leaders from attending major meetings of the regional grouping.