A meeting involving top diplomats from Southeast Asia, China, Russia and the United States will condemn violence against civilians in war-torn Myanmar, according to a draft statement seen Thursday by AFP.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has led diplomatic efforts to end Myanmar’s many-sided civil war sparked by a military coup in 2021.
But ASEAN has struggled to implement a five-point peace plan previously agreed by all bloc leaders, including Myanmar’s junta.
As fighting between the military and a myriad of armed groups rages, ASEAN foreign ministers are set to meet with their US, Chinese, Russian and other counterparts in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur on Friday where the issue will be discussed.
‘The Meeting denounced the continued acts of violence against civilians and public facilities,’ according to a draft chairman’s statement of the ASEAN Regional Forum seen by AFP.
Malaysia is this year’s rotating chair of ASEAN — long derided by critics as a toothless talking shop.
The meeting will express ‘its deep concern over the escalation of conflicts and humanitarian situation in Myanmar’.
It will also urge ‘all parties involved to take concrete action to immediately halt indiscriminate violence, exercise utmost restraint, ensure the protection and safety of all civilians and civilian infrastructures,’ according to the draft.
More than 6,600 people have been killed since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners monitoring group, and millions displaced.
Myanmar’s junta pledged a temporary ceasefire from early April to June ‘to continue the rebuilding and rehabilitation process’ after a magnitude 7.7 quake in the country’s central belt killed nearly 3,800 people and left tens of thousands homeless.
However, the truce was repeatedly broken by air strikes by the junta and attacks by armed groups.
Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing last month said the country would hold an election in December and January, the first in the war-torn nation since the military coup four years ago.
International monitors have said any elections under the junta would be a sham, while analysts say polls would be targeted by the military’s opponents and spark further bloodshed.
Junta forces have suffered stinging territorial losses to pro-democracy guerrillas and powerful ethnic armed groups in recent months.
Military backing from China and Russia is letting it stave off defeat, analysts say, but huge areas of the country are set to be beyond the reach of any junta-organised democratic exercise.
