'No ASEAN-EU meeting without Myanmar'

'No ASEAN-EU meeting without Myanmar'

YANGON (Agencies): A long-delayed ministerial meeting between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the European Union will not take place without Myanmar, the military state's foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Minister Win Aung told a press briefing at the foreign ministry in Yangon that ASEAN would not discriminate against one of its own members, by agreeing to a formula for the meeting that would sideline Myanmar, also known as Burma.

Myanmar launched a detailed attack on the West on Wednesday, accusing Britain and the United States of blatant hypocrisy while issuing a bare-faced denial that it is guilty of gross human rights violations.

In the combative news conference, the minister passed recent world news stories, including the Elian Gonzalez case, through the prism of Myanmar policy, to show what he said were the double standards at work in Western capitals.

"Human rights violations mean cruelty to the people, killing grounds, killing fields, people are slaughtered like animals," he said.

Myanmar is ostracized by the West because of the ruling military regime's human rights record and refusal to cede power to the party of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi after it swept general elections in 1990.

High-level EU-ASEAN meetings have been canceled since Myanmar was admitted into the Southeast Asian grouping in 1997. The EU nations opposed Myanmar's entry into ASEAN and refuse to sit at the same table as top Myanmar officials.

"We are now targeted with visa restrictions," Win Aung said. "If there is no visa, I will not attend the meeting and ASEAN will not go without one of its members."

Under a sanction first imposed in 1996, the EU does not grant visas to senior officials of the Myanmar regime.

In April, EU foreign ministers toughened the restrictions, specifically naming those in the regime to whom it applied. They also agreed to freeze funds held abroad by members of the regime.

Yet EU ministers "reaffirmed the importance" they attach to good relations with ASEAN and proposed a ministerial meeting with ASEAN nations later this year, although it wasn't clear how the diplomatic obstacles could be overcome to make it happen.