Myanmar's Foreign Secretary Aung Kyaw Moe, Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Theresa Lazaro and Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan posing for a group photo at the Asean Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Vientiane on Oct 8, 2024. - AP
VIENTIANE: Myanmar has sent a representative to a regional summit this week for the first time in three years as the ruling junta struggles to quell a civil war.
Its Foreign Secretary Aung Kyaw Moe is at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) meet in Laos which will commence on Wednesday (Oct 9).
The conflict in Myanmar will be high on the agenda, though more than three years of efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis have had no impact.
Asean barred Myanmar junta leaders from its summits in the wake of their February 2021 coup, and the generals have refused to send "non-political representatives" instead.
But Myanmar -- one of 10 Asean member states -- has sent a senior foreign ministry official as its representative to the three-day meeting in Vientiane.
Weeks after seizing power, the junta agreed to a "five-point consensus" plan aimed at restoring peace, but ignored it and carried on a bloody crackdown on dissent and armed opposition to its rule.
"The significance is that in a sense they are accepting the five-point consensus," said a senior diplomat quoted by AFP.
"They may have thought that it's better to have their own voice heard rather than be on the outside."
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing attended an emergency Asean summit on the crisis in April 2021, but the bloc has refused to invite him to regular gatherings since. - Agencies
