PM Lee to visit ASEAN countries

PM Lee to visit ASEAN countries

SINGAPORE: Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will visit
Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia this week as part of a new leader's
traditional introductory trips to fellow ASEAN states, his office
said on Monday.

The visit to the three fellow members of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) comes amid suggestions that
Myanmar could lose the ASEAN chairmanship next year unless
tangible democratic reforms are implemented.

Lee will begin his tour on Tuesday in Laos, where he will meet
Prime Minister Bounnhang Vorachith and call on President Khamtay
Siphandone, an official statement said.

In Myanmar on Wednesday he is scheduled to meet his
counterpart Soe Win and the chairman of the ruling junta, Senior
General Than Shwe.

Lee will go on to Cambodia on Thursday for a meeting with
Prime Minister Hun Sen and an audience with King Norodom
Sihamoni.

Lee, who took office last August, has already visited the
other ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines,
Thailand and Vietnam.

Lee's visit to Myanmar comes two weeks before a foreign
ministers' meeting in the Philippines at which Yangon may come
under pressure to carry out reforms or risk losing the rotating
ASEAN leadership next year. -- AFP