Myanmar-EU rift to be discussed

Myanmar-EU rift to be discussed

BANGKOK (AFP): Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) officials will meet soon to resolve a dispute with the European Union (EU) over Myanmar, a Thai daily said yesterday.

The annual EU-ASEAN Joint Cooperation Council has been postponed indefinitely after the two blocs failed to reach an agreement on the participation of officials representing Myanmar's military junta.

Wiboon Kusakul, director of the Thai foreign ministry's information department, said senior ASEAN officials may discuss the dispute on the sidelines of the Nov. 19 to Nov. 25 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Vancouver, the Bangkok Post reported.

Myanmar was admitted as a full member of ASEAN in July despite international condemnation of its human rights record, and officials here wanted Yangon officials to participate as full observers.

EU said Yangon should first sign a cooperation agreement and improve its human rights record, and suggested that Myanmar delegates remain "inactive" at the meeting, the daily reported.

A Thai foreign ministry official explained Thursday that Yangon was not a signatory to the EU-ASEAN cooperation agreement of 1980.

"As Burma (Myanmar) is not a signatory to this, their participation would require the explicit consent of all parties to the agreement," he added.

Diplomats in Brussels said the EU would attempt to restore its troubled relationship with ASEAN before the end of the year.

But they acknowledged real uncertainty about how to go about it.

"Contacts are quite chilly at the moment and it will probably be like that for a few weeks," said an official with the EU's Luxembourg presidency. "But quite soon we will have to have a go at picking up the pieces."

The EU has a ban on high-level contacts with officials of the Myanmar military junta.

EU officials, who admit to having been surprised by the firmness of the ASEAN stance, said they would not seek to escalate the row.

But they also insisted they would not give any further ground on Myanmar, making it difficult to see how a face-saving compromise that would allow the EU-ASEAN cooperation council to be rescheduled early next year will be struck.

The EU is anxious to ensure that the row with ASEAN does not spill over into the broader Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), a forum which includes Japan, South Korea and China, as well as the original ASEAN states.

But they acknowledge that this week's events do not augur well for the prospects of the ASEM summit due to take place in London in April going ahead.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has publicly called for an ASEAN boycott of the summit if Myanmar is not invited.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.