Junta chief turned president Min Aung Hlaing will make an official visit to Laos in the next few days, state media reported, his first trip to an Asean member state since taking on his new civilian role.
The planned trip comes four months after Hlaing transitioned from head of the military government to president. He has already visited Myanmar’s giant neighbours, India and China.
At the invitation of Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith, Hlaing will travel with his spouse and a delegation of senior Cabinet ministers and officials, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported yesterday.
It did not specify the dates of the visit.
The 11-member Asean did not endorse the results of Myanmar’s three-stage polls in December and January, which excluded major opposition groups and ended in an overwhelming victory for a party backed by the military.
Hlaing took power in a 2021 coup against an elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, which triggered protests that subsequently morphed into a devastating civil war.
Shortly after the coup, Asean unsuccessfully pushed its own peace plan for Myanmar known as the “five-point consensus”.
It also barred Myanmar’s ruling generals from their summits, with Hlaing mostly isolated diplomatically until last year.
After his election victory, Hlaing said that restoring ties with Asean was one of his government’s main priorities.
“A state visit to Laos represents the clearest break yet with the diplomatic quarantine that Asean imposed on Naypyidaw after the coup,” said Richard Horsey, senior Asia adviser at the International Crisis Group.
“That inevitably weakens the political force of the five-point consensus, and means that the shrinking number of Asean states still arguing against normalisation will find it increasingly difficult to hold the line,” he said. — Reuters
