RI, Thailand hint Myanmar may decide over ASEAN chair

RI, Thailand hint Myanmar may decide over ASEAN chair

Ivy Susanti, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The Indonesian government expected Myanmar itself to resolve
the deadlock over its taking of the rotating leadership of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) soon, while
Thailand foreign minister hinted that Myanmar could delay its
turn to avoid confrontation with the West.

Marty Natalegawa, Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman said
however that Myanmar should also provide a rationale for its
decision so it would not appear as if Myanmar was succumbing to
international pressure.

"Myanmar is likely to announce its decision during the ASEAN
Ministerial Meeting in Vientianne. We hope that every decision it
reaches is purely at Myanmar's own initiative, and not just
reactive to international demands," Marty told reporters in
Jakarta on Friday.

The annual ASEAN Ministerial Meeting and the ASEAN Regional
Forum, will be held in Vientiane, Laos, from July 24 to July 29.

Marty said that Western nations had acknowledged that ASEAN
members themselves had to deal with their neighbor Myanmar on
this issue without outside intervention.

"We (ASEAN) want to give room to maneuver for Myanmar, which
should be in line with ASEAN's collective interest," he said.

Thailand's foreign minister Kantathi Supamongkon has said he
has worked out a compromise to resolve the dispute over Myanmar
taking the ASEAN chairmanship in 2006.

The United States and the European Union have threatened to
boycott high-level meetings with the group if Myanmar takes over
next year without making progress on human rights, including
freeing opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Kantathi has given no concrete details of the plan but he told
reporters in Washington on Thursday that one way of avoiding a
showdown might be for Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, to
postpone its turn to chair ASEAN.

"Just as an example, if they were to postpone their
chairmanship then there would be a strong incentive for them to
also complete the process of national reconciliation so that they
could come back and participate actively in ASEAN," he was quoted
by Reuters as saying on Friday.

Kantathi also said that Myanmar's military junta had sent
Thailand and other nations "a general signal that they would
consider the interests of ASEAN above their own interests".

"There is a willingness to discuss issues which previously had
been seen as internal," said the foreign minister, who is to meet
his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on
Friday.

"It's not a black and white picture," he added. "It's a
picture with technicolor, so we feel we should look at it in that
real light."

Earlier in the day, in Strasbourg, France, the European
Parliament called on the 25-nation European Union to state
officially it would steer clear of key meetings "should Burma
become the chair of ASEAN in 2006 without meeting any of the
minimum conditions" on human rights and reform.

Also in Washington, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert
Zoellick said that Southeast Asian nations are frustrated and
embarrassed by Myanmar's deteriorating human rights record.

"I had a sense that every country in the region I spoke to is
frustrated about the lack of progress on Myanmar's refusal to
embark on democratic reforms," he said late on Thursday after a
regional swing covering Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam,
Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

"Some of them had a real problem in that Burma (Myanmar) is
their neighbor," Zoellick was quoted as saying by AFP on Friday.

Speaking at a private sector forum in Washington on
reconstruction of economies ravaged by the Dec. 26 tsunami,
Zoellick said he got an impression during his visit that
Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia were
prodding Myanmar to change in the interest of ASEAN.

He also said that United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
had asked Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to try to
talk to Myanmar's military chiefs on the need to move towards
democracy.

Last year, Yudhoyono, an ex-military general, contested and
won Indonesia's first direct presidential elections in the
history of the world's most populous Muslim nation.