Thaksin offers to act as mediator in Myanmar crisis<\/p>\n
Agencies, Bangkok\/Yangon<\/p>\n
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said on Thursday he was
\nwilling to act as a mediator to resolve the political deadlock in
\nMyanmar where opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is being held in
\ndetention.<\/p>\n
\"I am ready to do the job because I want to see the
\ndevelopment of democracy in this region, and I think that it is
\npossible and there is an exit,\" Thaksin told reporters.<\/p>\n
The premier said he had asked Myanmar's Home Affairs Minister
\nTin Hlaing to convey to Myanmar's leader Senior General Than Shwe
\na Thai proposal or \"road map\" to break the impasse in the
\nmilitary-run country.<\/p>\n
\"I am confident that the details in the road map can be
\nimplemented for Myanmar to achieve democracy and national
\nreconciliation,\" he said after meeting earlier with Tin Hlaing,
\nwho was attending a five-nations drugs meeting in the northern
\ntown of Chiang Mai.<\/p>\n
Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai on Thursday
\nfloated the road map at a meeting of Asian and European foreign
\nministers on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.<\/p>\n
He suggested creating an international forum to prod Myanmar
\nto free Suu Kyi, which would involve Southeast Asian nations, the
\nEuropean Union, China and Japan among others.<\/p>\n
Myanmar showed no signs of bending to international pressure
\nafter state-run media carried fresh denunciations of Suu Kyi and
\nsaid stiffer sanctions against the junta would backfire.<\/p>\n
\"We are ready to perform this duty because we want to see
\ndemocracy prosper in this region. I have ways and means to do
\nso,\" Shinawatra said in Bangkok.<\/p>\n
The United States and the European Union have threatened more
\nsanctions, while key donor Japan has halted new aid.<\/p>\n
Thailand, afraid harsher sanctions on Yangon will unleash a
\nflood of economic migrants, has floated the \"road map\" idea to
\ndemocracy.<\/p>\n
Myanmar's military government took Suu Kyi into \"protective
\ncustody\" on May 30 after her supporters were ambushed by a
\nprojunta gang during a political tour of the country's north.<\/p>\n
As international pressure on the junta to release Suu Kyi
\nbuilds, Thaksin will also discuss the Myanmar crisis with
\nMalaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad this weekend on the
\nMalaysian island of Langkawi.<\/p>\n
Thailand has an historically prickly relationship with its
\nneighbor Myanmar, and rarely comments on its internal affairs.
\nHowever, it has made an unusually frank criticism of the junta's
\nrecent treatment of Suu Kyi.<\/p>\n
Mahathir has also been publicly critical, warning that Myanmar
\nmay as a last resort face expulsion from the Association of
\nSoutheast Asian Nations if it continues defying world pressure to
\nfree the 1991 Nobel peace prize winner.<\/p>",
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