Laos says on track for ASEAN-EU meet

Laos says on track for ASEAN-EU meet

HANOI (Reuters): Laos said on Friday the political crisis in military-ruled Myanmar would not affect an ASEAN-EU meeting scheduled for December in Vientiane and that it had taken necessary security steps after a series of bomb blasts this year.

Laotian Information Minister Sileua Bounkham told reporters on the sidelines of a ministerial conference in Hanoi on Friday that there was no problem with security in Vientiane, despite a spate of bomb blasts earlier this year, which he blamed on "economic reasons

Concerns have been raised that Myanmar's treatment of its opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) could derail the long-delayed meeting of foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and European Union in Vientiane, the Laotian capital.

It is the first such meeting since February 1997 when the EU protested against Myanmar joining ASEAN.