U.S. to take up Myanmar issue at ASEAN forum

U.S. to take up Myanmar issue at ASEAN forum

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright plans to take up the "central issue" of Myanmar in talks with Southeast Asian foreign ministers here next week, a top U.S. official said yesterday.

A special assistant to President Bill Clinton, Sandra Kristoff, warned at a forum by satellite with Asian journalists that Myanmar's entry into ASEAN would affect the group's image, Malaysia's Bernama news agency said.

Myanmar is to be inducted together with Laos into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the eve of the group's annual meeting starting July 24.

The meeting will be followed on July 27 by the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on security, with foreign ministers from the world's leading military powers, as well as Myanmar, in attendance.

Myanmar is ruled by a military junta, known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), which seized power in 1988 and is accused of widespread human rights violations against political opponents.

Kristoff, interviewed by Malaysian, Japanese and New Zealand journalists on the U.S. government's Worldnet Dialogue, reiterated U.S. displeasure over ASEAN's decision to admit Myanmar but said it "is not (a decision) for us to make."

"We hope the dialogue between the U.S. Secretary of State and ASEAN ministers next week would discuss the central issue (of Myanmar)," added the senior director of Asian affairs at the U.S. National Security Council.

Bernama said Kristoff warned Myanmar's admission into the grouping would put at risk ASEAN's image of being committed to peace and stability, economic growth and more open societies.

The Myanmar junta has refused to honor the results of a 1990 general election won convincingly by pro-democracy forces led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

ASEAN's decision to postpone the admission of Cambodia following the recent bloody power struggle in Phnom Penh has grabbed the limelight and relegated the Myanmar issue to the sidelines ahead of the group's meeting.

ASEAN had rejected western pressure to put off Myanmar's membership, saying its style of "constructive engagement" would work better in promoting reform than a policy of isolating the junta.

On Cambodia, Kristoff reiterated U.S. support for ASEAN's decision to defer the country's membership after Second Prime Minister Hun Sen seized control while coalition partner First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh was on a visit to France.

Ranariddh, son of ailing King Sihanouk, has sought United Nations and U.S. support for his bid to be reinstated, and ASEAN countries have called on Hun Sen to restore the coalition.

"ASEAN has made the right decision after considering violence in Cambodia and the possibility of its spillover to ASEAN countries," Bernama quoted Kristoff as saying.