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.