EU, ASEAN meet after Myanmar rights delays

EU, ASEAN meet after Myanmar rights delays

BANGKOK (Reuters): Officials from the European Union (EU) and Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) gathered on Monday for their first bloc-to-bloc meeting in two years with ties still strained by Myanmar's human rights record.

The joint cooperation committee meeting, which goes into full session on Wednesday and Thursday, will cover trade, economic and industrial cooperation as well as initiatives on drugs and the environment.

It has twice been postponed since military-ruled Myanmar joined ASEAN in 1997, but a compromise was finally reached allowing Myanmar to attend but not speak.

"Everyone felt the meeting had to go ahead and so a certain compromise has been reached," said Thai government spokesman Akapol Sorasuchart.

EU sanctions, which bar senior Myanmar officials from entering Europe, forced cancellation of an ASEAN-EU foreign ministers' meeting due to have been held earlier this year.

The sanctions were imposed because of Myanmar's treatment of its pro-democracy opposition led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Her party won a 1990 election by a landslide, but the military ignored the result and detained many of its members.

Myanmar delegate Aye Lwin, the director-general of the Yangon Foreign Ministry's ASEAN affairs department, told Reuters he did not want to comment on Myanmar's status at the meeting.

"It's a really sensitive arrangement Thailand has undertaken and I don't want at this point in time to complicate things."

However, asked about the EU sanctions, he replied: "I think it's a pity that they have a political agenda on Myanmar."

Senior Thai delegate Anucha Osathanond, director-general of Thailand's ASEAN department, said he hoped the meeting would lead to lead to a ministerial conference "at a later date" but neither he nor EU officials were optimistic this would get off the ground any time soon given the EU ban on Myanmar officials.

"This meeting shows the EU and ASEAN are at least on talking terms," Anucha said. "We last met in 1997, and since then things have backed up, slowed down and some projects have expired."

Asked if Thailand was irritated by the blockage caused by Myanmar's rights record, he said: "We are concerned about the human rights situation in Myanmar."

Thailand came under fire at the weekend for defending Yangon by blocking an International Confederation of Free Trade Unions conference on forced labor and democracy in Myanmar, due to have started in Bangkok on Monday.

The confederation said Bangkok was allowing itself to be used by a country with an appalling human rights record. This cast doubt on the credibility of Thailand's current efforts to win the leadership of the World Trade Organization, it said.

Opponents of the Thai candidate for the top WTO post, Supachai Panitchpakdi, accuse Thailand of doing too little to defend labor rights.

But government spokesman Akapol said Bangkok believed it should not allow its soil to be used to attack any other country. He said Thailand had a good record on labor rights and he did not think the decision would affect Supachai's campaign.