JAKARTA, Feb 15 (Jakarta POst/ANN): Indonesia will at this week’s Asean retreat propose the creation of an eminent persons group to formulate a regional vision beyond 2025, which improves on the bloc’s ability to deal with “current challenges” amid doubts over its handling of crises including the Myanmar coup fallout.
Most Asean foreign ministers will convene in Cambodia’s capital city Phnom Penh starting from Wednesday for closed-door talks amid mounting pressure from the international community to deal with the Myanmar crisis, and at a time of flux in the wider Indo-Pacific region.
The retreat is Cambodia’s first high-level meeting as this year’s Asean chair, initially scheduled last month but postponed due to opposition over an invitation extended to Myanmar’s military regime, which continues to cling onto power after usurping the previous government of Aung San Suu Kyi over a year ago.
''It will be convened in an online-offline hybrid format, with the top diplomats of Brunei and Thailand electing to join the talks via video link, while the seven other foreign ministers are to meet in person.
Myanmar's junta regime pulled the country out of the meeting on Monday, reversing a previous decision to delegate the role of national representation to Chan Aye, a permanent secretary of foreign affairs at the Myanmar foreign ministry.
The Asean chair and other member states have demanded that Myanmar be represented by a bureaucrat and not by a junta appointee.
The retreat promises a candid stock take of Asean’s most pertinent issues both internally and externally, which will inform subsequent discussions as well as the outcome document for the Asean Ministerial Meeting in August.
The Foreign Ministry’s director general for Asean affairs, Sidharto Suryodipuro, said that Indonesia would table a proposal to form an Asean task force comprising respected individuals from the region, which will hash out a new vision document to replace the current iteration that has laid out a regional road map that goes up until 2025.
Sidharto said Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi had suggested that the new task force would provide “insights on whether the existing institution of Asean has been effective enough or [whether it needs to be] strengthened to deal with the current challenges that are changing fast”.
He also said that Jakarta wanted to discuss ways to implement the Asean Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) and touch on how the regional organization could be further prepared to face current and future challenges.
“One of the priorities we want to put forward is the AOIP follow-up, and we want to have a high-level task force to discuss the Asean Vision after 2025, which will focus on answering questions on how to increase institutional capacity and effectiveness in facing challenges in the region today,” the official told a recent press briefing.
The two proposal papers have been distributed to fellow member states and are expected to be approved by the foreign ministers at the retreat.
Slow to respond
While the retreat will touch on various topics, the Myanmar coup crisis remains high on the agenda.
Since the military putsch on Feb. 1 of last year, many observers have argued that Asean’s sluggish response to the complex crisis could be traced back to a lack of institutional capacity – that Asean was not designed to respond swiftly when an emergency occurred.
While then-Asean chair Brunei immediately issued a statement calling for “dialogue, reconciliation and a return to normalcy” on the day of the coup, it took several weeks of back and forth among the association’s top diplomats to find a solution they could all agree on.
Asean leaders talked to coup-maker Min Aung Hlaing in person in a meeting in April, during which they set out demands in what would eventually be dubbed the Five-Point Consensus (5PC).
The demands include the cessation of all violence, the appointment of an Asean special envoy and the distribution of humanitarian relief.
However, it took months for Asean to appoint its special envoy due to differences among member states.
The bloc finally agreed to name Brunei’s Second Foreign Minister Erywan Yusof as mediator, but his tenure was cut short by the conclusion of his country’s chairmanship.
Sidharto reiterated Indonesia’s position that as long as there was a stalemate in the implementation of the 5PC, Myanmar should be “given time to focus on internal affairs”.
“As long as there is no progress, Myanmar will continue to be represented at the nonpolitical level in future meetings, including those with dialogue partners,” Sidharto said.
Last week, Cambodian officials announced that Min Aung Hlaing had agreed to set up a visit by Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, as the new Asean special envoy to Myanmar, to meet with members of the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD).
But the junta's decision to pull Myanmar out of Thursday's retreat could spell further trouble down the line for the 10-nation grouping.
"Myanmar's inability to participate or even designate a non-political representative to the AMM Retreat [...] is inevitable since it contradicts the principles and practice of equal representation in Asean," the Myanmar foreign ministry stated on Monday. - Jakarta Post/ANN
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